THE UNIVERSITIES 

OF ANCIENT GREECE 



THE UNIVERSITIES 
OF ANCIENT GREECE 



BY 
JOHN W. H. WALDEN, Ph.D. 

FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN LATIN IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1909 



V 



V 






^ 



Copyright, 1909 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 



Published October, 1909 




©CI.A251 



Sl^emotiae atmncttli 



PREFACE 

The germ of this book was first presented in the form 
of public lectures delivered at Harvard University in 
the spring of 1904. To the material then presented 
much other material, which it was found impossible 
to put in the lectures, has been added, and the whole 
has been thoroughly revised. 

It is the feeling of the author that the Greek edu- 
cation of the imperial times has not received the con- 
sideration that is due to its importance. This neglect 
has perhaps been partly owing to the difficulty and 
uncertainty that have until recently attended the read- 
ing of many of the authors of this period. We now 
have, for Libanius's speeches — though not yet for his 
letters — the excellent text edition of Richard Forster, 
but of some other authors important for this subject 
there is still lacking an authoritative text. 

In some measure also the neglect in question is prob- 
ably to be accounted for by the general shadow under 
which every period of Greek antiquity not strictly to 
be called 'classical* has to some extent rested. Happily 
this shadow, which is due to the very brilliancy of the 
so-called 'classical* period, has been in recent years 
somewhat dissipated. The attitude of mind that would 
see in the institutions and productions of the later age 
only deteriorated forms of the perfect types of the 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

earlier age, and things therefore to be disregarded, is 
less common now than it was formerly. It will not 
do to dismiss the Greek education of imperial times 
with the words 'barren* and 'superficial. ' To those 
who shared in it, it was a very living thing, and it was 
bound up with the past life and the religion of Greece in 
a way which we do not find it easy fully to appreciate. 
To those living in the eastern part of the Empire the 
belief in the past of the Greek race — that brilliant past 
that antedated the conquests of Alexander — was what 
the belief in the permanency of Rome was to those 
living in the western part of the Empire. It was an 
integral and vital part of their being. The education 
that rested on such a basis could not be wholly barren 
and superficial, and any system of education that sur- 
vived and performed its part in the world for eight hun- 
dred years certainly merits our closest scrutiny. 

Notwithstanding the insufficiency, as measured by 
modern standards, of the ancient sophistical education, 
it is well for us in this extremely 'practical* age to hold 
in mind the ideal which that education proposed for 
itself. This ideal will be found stated on page 351. 
It "received its embodiment in the man who had been 
trained, morally, intellectually, and aesthetically, to use 
his powers in the interest of the state. Such a man 
was the orator. The orator . . . was the man of broad 
learning and general culture, trained to see the distinc- 
tions of right and wrong, and to act with reference to 
them in the service of his 7ro\t?, or native city." A life 
of service in the interest of the state was here proposed — 
a life, however, based, not on technical knowledge or 



PREFACE 



IX 



scientific attainments, but on a literary and humanistic 
training. Though undue stress was laid in this edu- 
cation on the aesthetic training, and though the intel- 
lectual training was, as judged by modern standards, 
defective, these facts should not be allowed to obscure 
the outlines of the ideal. 

This book is a contribution to the study of the Greek 
education of imperial times. Greek education, how- 
ever, was a connected whole. It is impossible fully to 
understand its later forms without having some under- 
standing of those which preceded them. For this 
reason, a short account has been given, in the earlier 
chapters, of the Athenian education in pre-Alexandrian 
times, and of the conditions which prevailed in Grecian 
lands in the last three centuries B. C. 

Exception may be taken to the use of the term Uni- 
versity as applied to the congregations of professors and 
students described in these chapters, on the ground that 
no distinct charters of incorporation were granted them. 
At Alexandria, however, the Museum was a royal 
foundation and, if it did not actually receive a charter 
from the king of Egypt, it resembled in many other 
respects the modern university. The Capitolium at 
Constantinople, put on a new basis by Theodosius II 
in the fifth century, had a rigid organization and was 
under the immediate direction of the emperor. At 
other places, as at Athens and Antioch, where the edu- 
cational organization was less rigid than at Constanti- 
nople, the teachers and the students formed a recog- 
nized body in the community, and the teachers were 
from the time of the Antonines, or even earlier, granted 



x PREFACE 

privileges and held subject to governmental control. 
But, apart from this more formal aspect of the question, 
the essential elements of the university, the teachers and 
students, the spirit of learning, the enthusiasm for in- 
tellectual ideals, were present in all these centres. 
There seems, therefore, to be ample justification for the 
use of the word University in connection with them. 

The lectures which formed the nucleus of this book 
were designed, not only for professed students of educa- 
tion and of classical philology, but also for those whose 
interests were more general. It is hoped that the book 
will appeal to these three classes of readers, and that, 
while other investigators in this field may be assisted by 
the references in the notes, those whose interests are 
less specific may, by neglecting the notes and reading 
the pages of the text consecutively, gain a connected and 
comprehensive idea of the story of Greek education. 

I desire to express my sincere thanks to Professor 
Herbert Weir Smyth of Harvard University for his 
kindness in reading a part of the proof and suggesting 
to me a number of improvements in the text. To my 
wife I am indebted for the encouragement she gave 
me while I was writing the lectures and for helpful 
suggestions. 

J. W. H. W. 

Cambridge, September 20, 1909. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Bibliography: Selected Titles . . . xiii 

. I. Introductory 1 

II. Education at Athens in the Fifth and 

Fourth Centuries B. C 10 

III. The Macedonian Period 41 

IV. Education and the State 58 

V. Establishment of University Education 

in Grecian Lands 68 

VI. History of University Education from 

Marcus Aurelius to Constantine . 97 

VII. The Decline of University Education: 

the Conflict with Christianity . 109 

VIII. The Professors : Their Appointment and 

Number 130 

IX. The Professors : Their Pay and Position 

in Society 162 

X. What the Sophists Taught and How 

They Taught It 195 

XI. Public Displays 218 

XII. SCHOOLHOUSES, HOLIDAYS, ETC.; THE 

School of Antioch 265 

xi 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII. The Boyhood of a Sophist .... 282 

XIV. Student Days 296 

XV. After College 334 

XVI. Conclusion 340 



BIBLIOGRAPHY: SELECTED TITLES 

Arnim, H. v., Leben und Werhe des Dio von Prusa. Berlin, 1898. 
Bernhardy, G., Grundriss der griechischen Litteratur. 5th ed. 

Halle, 1892. 
Boissier, Gaston, La fin du paganisme. 3d ed. Paris, 1898. 
Bujgess, T. C, Epideictic Literature. Chicago, 1902. 
Capes, W. W., University Life in Ancient Athens. London, 1877. 
Cramer, F., Geschichte der Erziehung und des Unterrichts im 

Alterthume. Elberfeld, 1832-38. 
Davidson, Thomas, The Education of the Greek People and its 

Influence on Civilization. New York, 1903. 
Dill, Samuel, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western 

Empire. 2d ed. London, 1905. 
Freeman, K. J., Schools of Hellas. London, 1907. 
Girard, Paul, L'Education athenienne au Ve. et au IV e. sieclc 

avant J.-C. 2d ed. Paris, 1891. 
Gbll, Hermann, Professoren und Studenten der romischen Kaiser- 

zeit, in Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom. 3d ed. Leipzig, 

1880. 
Grasberger, Lorenz, Erziehung und Unterricht im hlassischen 

Alterthum. Wiirzburg, 1864-81. 
Graves, F. P., A History of Education before the Middle Ages. 

New York, 1909. 
Harrent, Albert, Les ecoles d'Antioche. Paris, 1898. 
Hatch, Edwin, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon 

the Christian Church (The Hibbert Lectures, 1888). 8th ed. 

London, 1901. 
Hertzberg, G. F., Die Geschichte Griechenlands unter der Herr- 

schaft der R'&mer. Halle, 1866-75. 
Hulsebos, G. A., De educatione et institutions apud Romanos. 

Utrecht, 1875. 
Krause, J. H., Geschichte der Erziehung, des Unterrichts und der 

BUdung bei den Griechen, Etruskern und R'&mern. Halle, 

1851. 

xiii 



xiv BIBLIOGRAPHY: SELECTED TITLES 

Kuhn, Emil, Die stadtische und biirgerliche Verjassung des 

rbmischen Reichs bis auf die Zeiten Justinians. Leipzig, 

1864-65. 
Laurie, S. S., Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education. 

2d ed. London, 1900. 
Lerber, Th. v., Professoren, Studenten und Studentenleben vor 1500 

Jahren. Bern, 1867. 
Mahaffy, J. P., Old Greek Education. London, 1881. 
Monroe, Paul, Source Book of the History of Education for the 

Greek and Roman Period. New York, 1906. 

A Text-Book in the History of Education. New York, 1907. 

Petit de Julleville, Louis, L'Ecole d'Athenes au quatrieme siecle 

apres Jesus-Christ. Paris, 1868. 

Histoire de la Grece sous la domination romaine. Paris, 1875. 

j/ Rauschen, Gerhard, Das griechisch-romische Schulwesen zur 

Zeit des ausgehenden Heidentums. Bonn, 1901. 
Rohde, Erwin, Der griechische Roman. 2d ed. Leipzig, 1900. 
Schemmel, Fritz, Der Sophist Libanios als Schiller und Lehrer, 

in Neue Jahrbiicher fur das klassische Alterthum, 20, 1907, 

pp. 52-69. 
Die Hochschule von Konstantinople im IV. Jahrhundert p. 

Ch. n., in Neue Jahrbiicher fur das klassische Alterthum, 22, 

1908, pp. 147-168. 
Die Hochschule von Athen im IV. und V. Jahrhundert 

p. Ch. n., in Neue Jahrbiicher fur das klassische Alter- 
thum, 22, 1908, pp. 494-513. 
Sclosser, F. C., Universitaten, Studirende und Professoren der 

Griechen zu Julian's und Theodosius' Zeit, in Archiv fur 

Geschichte und Literatur, 1830, 1 Bd., pp. 217-272. 
Sievers, G. R., Das Leben des Libanius. Berlin, 1868. 
Ussing, J. L., Erziehung und Jugendunterricht bei den Griechen 

und R'dmern. Neue Bearbeitung. Berlin, 1885. 
Wilkins, A. S., National Education in Greece in the Fourth Century 

before Christ. London, 1873. 

Roman Education. Cambridge, 1905. 

Zumpt, H., Ueber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in 

Athen und die Succession der Scholarchen, in Abhandlungen 

der kbniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1844, 

pp. 27-119. 



THE 

UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The period treated in these chapters on The Univer- 
sities of Ancient Greece is the first five centuries of the 
Christian era, and the part of the world the eastern half 
of the Roman Empire — that half of it that was domi- 
nated by the Greek language and Greek civilization. 
Ancient Greece, as the term is commonly understood, 
included that small district in Europe which lay south of 
the Cambunian Mountains and formed the southern 
extremity of the Balkan Peninsula; it corresponded 
roughly to the modern political division of that name. 
More properly, however, the term is applied to all those 
lands in which the Greek type of civilization and Greek 
ideals prevailed, and in this sense it included in the fifth 
and fourth centuries B. C. the islands of the ^Egean Sea, 
much of the neighboring coast-land of Europe and 
Asia, and many outlying districts in various directions, 
such as parts of Sicily and southern Italy in the west, 
Cyrene in the south, and numerous colonies on the shore 
of the Black Sea. With the advent of Macedonia into 
the field of Grecian politics, Greek civilization was 

l 



2 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

spread still further abroad and the bounds of Greece 
were again widened. They now included, besides the 
Balkan Peninsula and the islands of the iEgean and 
eastern Mediterranean, Egypt and the adjacent parts 
of Libya, the whole of Asia Minor, with Syria, Pales- 
tine, and Arabia Petrsea, Thrace, and Macedonia. It 
is in this broadest sense of the term that the word Greece 
is used in the title of the present work. 

The period is one of great interest. It was the time 
when, throughout the Empire, the old order of things 
was breaking up or dissolving and the new was taking 
its place. In the West, Roman civilization was uniting 
with German arms to form the new Roman-German 
Empire; while, in the East, that which we call Hellenism 

— the later Greek civilization and culture, permeated 
by the ancient Greek spirit — was slowly but surely 
giving way before the new forces of Christianity and 
Byzantinism. Strictly, this is true of only the last part 

— approximately the last half — of the period in ques- 
tion; for the spirit of Byzantinism can hardly be said to 
have made its appearance much before the time of 
Diocletian, and the Christian religion was itself on the 
defensive as late as that emperor's reign, while the 
menace of the German arms was not serious in the 
early years of the Empire. But the seed had already 
been sown for the overthrow of the Hellenistic civiliza- 
tion before the first convert to Christianity had been 
made in the East, and the downfall of the Empire was 
foreshadowed in the corruption, profligacy, and ex- 
travagance of the Roman Court in the first century A. D. 
In the meantime, before the new capital had been built 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

near the mouth of the Black Sea, and the Christian 
religion established as the Court religion by Constan- 
tine, and before the more serious inroads of the bar- 
barians began along the northern border of the Empire, 
Greece and Rome respectively enjoyed large measures 
of peace and prosperity. Indeed, in the first centuries 
of the period before us, there was something like a 
genuine revival both in Roman and in Greek letters, 
and even in the later years the course of affairs was not 
always, on its face, one of steady and uninterrupted 
decline. Attached to both events — the breaking up of 
the civilization of the West and the decline and extinc- 
tion of Hellenism in the East — there is a tragic interest, 
and it is only when we recall that on the ruins of the 
Roman state there was to be raised by other hands a 
new civilization, embodying much of the old, and that 
the seed of Hellenism was to be preserved through the 
centuries and to fructify in modern soil, that we view 
the events in a different light. 

We have to do in these chapters, not with the wars 
and bloodshed, but with the educational and social life, 
of the times. It is, indeed, not a little singular that 
Greece, just at the moment when she lost her political 
independence, should have established another sort of 
rule more solid and more enduring than the other. 
The contrast that is here presented is striking. In the 
field of government Greece had never been able to 
establish and to maintain successfully for any length of 
time a federation of states. The centrifugal force 
among the different units of which such a federation 
should have been composed was too great. The Greek 



4 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

language and education, on the other hand, formed, in 
the later centuries of Hellenism, the strongest bond of 
union between diverse races. This it was that dis- 
tinguished these races from all barbarians, and even 
gave them a certain superiority over their Latin-edu- 
cated countrymen in the western half of the Empire. 
More than any other thing, it appealed to a national 
sentiment. 1 

In this study of ancient university life, the inquiry has 
been limited to those countries in which the prevailing 
language was Greek. Roman education in imperial 
times was, it is true, in the main modelled on that of the 
Greeks, and there were teachers of Greek learning in 
Gaul, as there were teachers of Latin learning at Con- 
stantinople. On the whole, however, it seems desirable 
to keep the two fields apart, and there is enough dis- 
tinction between the two on the basis of language alone 
to warrant this separation. 

1 Lib., i. 458, 22: "EM^y tis et Kal Kpareis ''EW-^vcaw oUtu yap tf8t6v 
fwi KoKeiv rb rots fiapfidpois dpTiiraXov, Kal otide'v p.oi /x4p.\f/€Tai rb yivos 
Alvetov ib., i. 333, 8: el drj rots A6yois /xaXKov 1) rb ye'vei rbv YiWyva. 
KXrjre'ov. See Rohde, Gr. Rom., p. 319, and Schmid, Gr. Renais., 
pp. 4, 31. Greek sophistry was a protest against barbarism, 
and it tended to preserve the level of culture in the ancient 
world. Cf. H. C. Lodge, Scribner's Magazine, June, 1907, 
p. 658: "... I have often wondered how many people have 
stopped to consider that our language is one of the greatest 
bonds which hold the Union together, perhaps the strongest, as 
it is the most impalpable of all. ... In the language, too, lies 
the best hope of assimilating and Americanizing the vast masses 
of immigrants who every year pour out upon our shores, for 
when these new-comers learn the language, they inevitably ab- 
sorb, in greater or less degree, the traditions and beliefs, the 
aspirations and the modes of thought, the ideals and the attitude 
toward life, which that language alone enshrines." See p. 346. 






INTRODUCTORY 5 

The side of education that was most prominent in the 
centuries we are to study, and the side, therefore, that 
will specially engage our attention, is that known as the 
sophistic. The words sophistry and sophistic are 
familiar to us in English, but we must not be misled by 
the associations of the English words. Sophistry was, 
no doubt, even among the Greeks, responsible for much 
that was pernicious in style and in form of thought, 
but it was far from being the wholly bad thing that it 
is, probably, with us. 

The phenomenon of the rise and spread of Greek 
sophistry had a basis of fact deep in the character of 
the Greek people, and its influence on the course of 
Greek letters we should find it hard to overestimate. 
The Greeks were by nature a people of speakers, and 
from early times the art of oratory was highly prized 
among them. Hardly a form — we may say, no form — 
of literature arose in Greece that did not owe much of 
its distinctive character to considerations of the spoken 
word. The Greeks were also, however, a people in 
whom the sense of fitness and proportion was highly 
developed. In the old days — the days to which the 
most perfect of the works of art and literature belong — 
the poet or the philosopher, the historian or the public 
speaker, if he had a message to convey, not only chose 
the appropriate form in which to convey it, but also, 
in making use of that form, attended to the careful ad- 
justment of words and thought; neither of these two 
parts of the discourse was allowed to be out of propor- 
tion to the other; and in this careful adjustment of 
words and thought lay the literary perfection for which 



6 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the Greeks strove. But, as time went on, men came to 
see more and more of the possibilities that lay in this 
that was called language, and to observe and wonder at 
the many curious things that could be done with it; * 
then they began to cultivate literary style as a thing that 
was to be desired for itself. Symmetry and proportion 
were lost sight of. Perfection was no longer sought in 
the careful adjustment of words and thought, but in the 
polish and elegance of words alone. Now it was just 
this cult of style for style's sake that formed the essence 
of sophistry. Artistic excellence, we see, was still the 
ideal of the Greek, but his mental vision had become 
perverted. 

But though this was the case, the influence of sophis- 
try on the course of Greek letters was far-reaching 
and important. Sophistry served, by bringing back 
into favor Attic words, expressions, and peculiarities 
of language which had fallen, or were tending to fall, 
into disuse, to establish, on a basis of Attic purity, 
the form which the Greek literary language was to 
retain through several centuries. The old so-called 

1 The first intimation of these possibilities was given to the 
Athenians by Gorgias, the famous orator and rhetorician, who 
came to Athens on an embassy from Leontini in Sicily in 427 
B.C. "Being brought before the people," says Diodorus (xiu 
53), "he spoke to the Athenians about the alliance, and the 
Athenians, who were naturally clever and fond of speech-making, 
were astounded at the strange character of his language. For 
he was the first to make use of exaggerated and elaborate figures, 
antitheses, equally balanced clauses, rhymes, and other such 
devices — things which nowadays [the second half of the first 
century B. C] are held to smack of over-niceness and strike one 
as ridiculous when used to excess, but were then, owing to the 
novelty of the style, deemed worthy of respect." 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

1 classic ' authors, as Plato, Demosthenes, Isocrates, 
etc., were carefully read and studied in the schools, and 
collections of unfamiliar words and phrases, sometimes 
accompanied by explanations, were made from them. 
Some of these collections were designed to serve as a 
basis for further study, while others were meant for the 
use of those who wished to write in a pure Attic style. 
Sometimes juristic, antiquarian, or other lore was in- 
corporated in these works, which then took on the 
character of encyclopaedias. It is to this kind of ac- 
tivity that we owe such works as the Lexicon of Harpo- 
cration, the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux, and the 
i k.TTLKL<TTal i or Guides to Correct Attic, of Phrynichus 
and Mceris, as well as lexica like those of M\ius Diony- 
sius and Pausanias, which are no longer preserved, but 
were used by the later, Byzantine, lexicographers. 
Other kinds of collections were also made under 
the influence of the sophistic schools, such as collections 
of proverbs, myths, etc., and certain grammatical works 
stood in near relation to the study of sophistry. Com- 
pilations of the class represented by the Deipnosophistce 
of Athenseus and the Varia Historia of iElian were 
fostered in the same atmosphere. Certain forms of 
literature were of distinctly sophistic origin or develop- 
ment: the imaginary epistle, cultivated noticeably by 
Alciphron and Aristaenetus ; the ' description ' so- 
called, employed by the two Philostrati in their de- 
scriptions of pictures, and by Callistratus in his de- 
scriptions of statues; and, perhaps most important of 
all, the novel, known to us especially through the works 
of Heliodorus, Longus, and Achilles Tatius. Probably 



8 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

no form of literature, however, was not in some measure 
influenced by the sophistic movement, and, indeed, the 
case could not well be otherwise, when nearly everybody 
that wrote received his training in a school of sophistry. 
Even the discourses of the philosophers, though more or 
less technical in character, tended to clothe themselves 
in a language of sophistical coloring and form, and 
some authors who were comparatively free from the 
mannerisms of the sophists themselves acknowledged 
the sophistical sway by recurring to the Attic style, 
which the sophists had established as a standard. The 
great Christian orators and writers of the fourth century, 
men like Gregory Nazianzehe, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil 
the Great, John Chrysostom, were educated in the 
schools of sophistry, and so the sophistic standard of 
taste in style was carried over into the Christian litera- 
ture also. 

It will be seen from what has been said that the 
sophistic movement was one of great significance in the 
history of Greek letters. A movement which thus 
affected the course of a literature for several centuries 
and even exerted its influence over those who tried to 
deny its authority is one of the important events in 
the intellectual life of a nation. For a proper under- 
standing of the later ancient Greek literature — the 
literature of the last five centuries of Hellenism — an 
understanding of Greek sophistry — its meaning and 
its course — is essential. These considerations alone 
should recommend the study of this subject to our 
attention; but there are other aspects under which the 
movement of which we are speaking may be viewed. 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

The sophistic training appeals to our curiosity as a 
method of education, and the activity of the schools of 
sophistry presents to us a most interesting phase of 
ancient Greek social life. It is to these two aspects of 
the movement that we purpose in these pages to direct 
our attention. We wish, in the first place, to obtain an 
idea of what the Greek higher education was like in the 
last five centuries of Hellenism, and we wish, in the 
second place, to become acquainted with the teachers 
and students of those days, to get as vivid an impression 
as possible of their activity and their personality. As a 
setting to this picture, we need also to know something 
of the course which this higher education took, and of 
the way in which it was affected by the different streams 
of Roman politics, barbarian invasion, Christianity, and 
what has been called the spirit of Byzantinism. 

Greek education, however, was continuous. It began 
probably far back of the time when we begin to have 
historical records, and it continued, with modifications 
but not with interruptions, at least through the time 
that is included in these chapters. Some consideration, 
therefore, of the conditions that prevailed in the cen- 
turies preceding those in which sophistry came to the 
fore, as well as some account of the lower grades of edu- 
cation, of which the highest grade was an outgrowth, 
is desirable. A detailed exposition of the intellectual 
life of the earlier period, however, we shall not be 
required to give. 



CHAPTER II 

EDUCATION AT ATHENS IN THE FIFTH AND 
FOURTH CENTURIES B. C. 

Although the Greeks in many parts of the world 
began at an early time to take a practical interest in the 
education of their youth, it is with regard to the educa- 
tional life of the Athenians that we have the most in- 
formation up to, at least, the third century B. C. In 
later years, when Athens became the centre of a new, 
Hellenistic, world, there was, among nearly all Greeks, 
a tendency, which grew stronger every day, to adopt 
the principles and methods of the Athenian education. 
For these reasons we may take, as the centre of our 
inquiry in the pre-Alexandrian period, the educational 
life of Athens. 

The education of the Athenians in the fifth century 
B. C. was, as is well known, a form of training, or edu- 
cation in the strict sense, rather than a system of in- 
struction. It consisted of two parts — a training for 
the mind and character (called /javai/ey), and a training 
for the body (called yv/Mvaa-riKij). MovaLfcri, music in the 
broad sense (as being any art presided over by a Muse), 
comprised reading and writing, counting, singing, and 
lyre or flute playing. For a long time the lyre was the 

only musical instrument used in the schools, but after 

10 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 11 

the Persian Wars the flute came into favor; it did not, 
however, supersede the lyre, and in the fourth century, 
if not earlier, it fell into its former disfavor. The au- 
thors that were read in the schools were, of course, the 
poets — Homer and Hesiod perhaps first of all, and then 
the lyric poets. Toward the end of the fifth century 
the tragedians also probably came into use. 1 Large 
quantities of these authors were learned by heart, and 
some of the lyric poetry was sung to the accompaniment 
of the lyre. The chief aim of the Athenian education 
appears in the point of view from which the poets were 
studied : they were looked upon primarily, not as literary 
artists, but as moral preceptors, and were required, not 
so much to form the tastes as to develop the characters 
of the pupils. The teacher, the 'ypafM/jLaTiaT^ as he was 
called, would be sure to find, in reading with his pupils 
the Homeric poems, abundant opportunity to inculcate 
lessons of morality based on the actions and words of 
the gods and heroes, while much of the lyric poetry, of 
course, taught its own lesson and required no inter- 
preter. Still, although the moral side of these poems 
was the side chiefly dwelt upon in the instruction of the 
period, it is certain that the Greeks, with all their 
natural sensitiveness to the charm of language, did not 
fail to recognize an educating influence in the harmony 
of sweet words, as well as in that of musical sounds. 
The training as a whole, we should say, was directed to 
the harmonious development of the judgment, the taste, 

1 Sandys, Hist. Clas. Schol, i. p. 60; Girard, L'Ed. ath'en., pp. 
149, 150. According to Lucian (Anarch., 22), the laws were 
learned by heart in the time of Solon (c/. Plato, Protag., 326 D). 



12 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the intelligence, the moral and the physical qualities of 
the youth. 1 

1 Cf. Quint., Inst, or., i. 8, 5. The locus classicus on the educa- 
tion of the Greek boy is Plato, Protag., 325 C-326 C. The follow- 
ing translation is by Professor Jowett : " Education and admoni- 
tion commence in the first years of childhood and last to the 
very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are 
quarrelling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever 
he is able to understand them: he cannot say or do anything 
without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is 
unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable; this is holy, 
that is unholy; do this and abstain from that. And if he obeys, 
well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, 
like a piece of warped wood. At a later stage they send him to 
teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than 
to his reading and music; and the "teachers do as they are desired. 
And when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to 
understand what is written, as before he understood only what 
was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, 
which he reads at school; in these are contained many admoni- 
tions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous 
men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may 
imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, 
again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young 
disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they 
have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the 
poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these 
they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite 
familiar to the children's souls, in order that they may learn to 
be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more 
fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part 
has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to the 
master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better min- 
ister to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be compelled 
through bodily weakness to play the coward in war or on any 
other occasion." Cf. Luc, Anarch., 20 ff. See also Monroe, Hist, 
of Educ, p. 91: "However long it might take the boy to acquire 
the ability to play the lyre, mere technical skill was never the end. 
The task of the boy was similar to that of the work of the old 
bard. . . . The playing of the lyre, in the school sense, con- 
tinued to be this improvising an accompaniment in harmony 
with the thought expressed in the passage repeated. Here was 
demanded both an insight and understanding in the interpreta- 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 13 

Such was the type of the education of the Athenian 
youth through most of the fifth century B. C. In mat- 
ters of detail, the education of one boy doubtless often 
differed from that of another. The sons of the rich, we 
are told, 1 went to school earlier, and left school later, 
than the sons of the poor, and this fact of itself implies, 
or suggests, in these cases a difference of attainment. 
Again, all teachers, we may be sure, did not teach by 
the same stereotyped method, and some, no doubt, were 
able to carry their pupils farther than others or even to 
give them more or less rudimentary instruction in 
branches not here indicated. Such teachers were 
Damon, Pythocleides, Agathocles, and so on — men of 
larger intelligence and fuller equipment than their 
neighbors, and so better able to carry their pupils along 
the lines of a more advanced instruction. 

One important aspect, however, of the educational 
life of this period we have as yet not touched upon — 
that represented by the so-called sophists. As far back 
as the time of Thales, or even earlier, men had begun to 
speculate in a rational way on the phenomena of nature 
and to study the facts of science, and from then onward 
all the great speculative writers of Greece were really so 
many public teachers. Also, the poets and others, in so 

tion of the poem and skill and creative ability in the construc- 
tion and performance of its accompaniment. In both respects, 
there was a demand for individual ability and initiative, and 
hence there resulted a development of personality quite foreign 
to any preceding type of education. Indeed, it is to be doubted 
whether education as a process of developing creative power — 
power of expression, of initiative, and of appreciation — has ever 
been given a more fruitful form." 

1 Plato, Protag., 326 C. 



14 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

far as they showed a tendency to speculate and reason, 
may be regarded in the same light. Some of these men 
are even said to have given personal instruction, as 
Xenophanes to Parmenides, 1 Parmenides to Leucippus,* 
Anaxagoras to Euripides." How true it is that in those 
days great thinkers were looked upon as teachers is 
shown by the fact that we so often in the history of 
Greek thought meet the statement that this or that dis- 
tinguished man was the pupil of this or that other dis- 
tinguished man. In many instances, perhaps, the 
former was influenced solely by the writings of the 
latter, and this may have been the case with at least one 
of the pairs just mentioned — Parmenides and Leucip- 
pus, namely. However this may be, we see that at no 
period of her history, at least subsequently to the time 
of Thales, was Greece without some measure of what is 
commonly called "higher learning." It was probably 
such learning as this that formed the staple of the 
instruction of the more advanced of the musical teach- 
ers of the day, such men as Damon and the others just 
mentioned. 

But shortly after the middle of the fifth century there 
began to be apparent symptoms of a movement that was 
destined in the end to bring about an extension of 
knowledge in many directions. There was at that time 
a tendency toward the consideration of questions relat- 
ing especially to moral science, practical statesmanship, 
and rhetoric and grammar. The representatives of this 

l Diog. Laert., ix. 21. 

■ See Pauly's Real-Enqjc, s. v. Leucippua. 

8 Vitae Eurip. 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 15 

tendency in the second half of the fifth century, as well 
as the successors of those who up to that time had been 
the inculcators of such "higher learning" as was then 
current, were Socrates and the sophists. These men 
were the signs of an intellectual stirring that was then 
taking place in many parts of the Greek world, and, 
while it is true, as stated, that the movement was at the 
time most noticeable in the fields of moral science, prac- 
tical statesmanship, and rhetoric and grammar, it is 
also the case that the movement was not confined to 
those fields, and that in the end the impulse was felt 
all along the line of speculative and scientific inquiry. 

The story of the fifth century sophists is well known, 
and it is no part of our present purpose to enter into the 
details of their lives and activity. They must not, of 
course, be confounded with the sophists of many cen- 
turies later, whose acquaintance we shall make in the 
subsequent chapters, nor should they even be taken as 
examples of what those sophists were like. As we shall 
see, many characteristics the two groups did have in 
common, but in many others they differed, and even 
their exact historical connection has been matter of 
controversy. 

One of the most remarkable circumstances connected 
with the appearance of the fifth century sophists was 
the enthusiasm with which they were everywhere re- 
ceived by the young men of Greece. We remember * 
how the young Hippocrates, having learned late one 
evening that the sophist Protagoras had arrived in town, 
was for setting off that very night to obtain an introduc- 
1 Plato, Protag., 310 A. 



16 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tion to him; but, curbing his impatience for the time 
being, he awoke Socrates the next morning before day- 
light by pounding on his door, and begged to be taken 
immediately to Protagoras's quarters. We recall ' also 
how the youthful Theages, having heard in his country 
home of the wonderful doings of the sophists at Athens, 
was not content until he had prevailed upon his father 
to accompany him to the city in search of one of these 
men. We are induced to ask, What was the source of 
this great enthusiasm on the part of the young men of 
Greece? For we must remember that in those days 
there was no university, with its halo of associations and 
traditions, to attract the young man to a life of study: 
the youthful student was then something of a pioneer 
in the field. 

One motive for seeking the society of the sophists — 
a motive which was perhaps not always consciously, 
even when actually, present — was undoubtedly the 
desire to obtain personal distinction in the state, either 
through an enlarged culture or by superior knowledge 
of statecraft. "I think he desires to become distin- 
guished in the state," says Socrates, when accounting to 
Protagoras for Hippocrates's motive in seeking his 
(Protagoras's) society. 8 

Secondly, the personality of the sophists and the charm 
that lay in their words were powerful motives to draw 
many to their society, t The most of Protagoras's fol- 
lowers," says Socrates, 3 "seemed to be foreigners; for 

1 [Plato], Theag., 121 B-122 A. 

2 Plato, Protag., 316 C. Theages desired to be made clever, or 
wise (<ro06s, Theag., 121 D). 

3 Plato, Protag., 315 A. 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 17 

these the sophist brings with him from the various 
cities through which he passes, charming them, like 
Orpheus, with his voice, and they, charmed, follow 
where the voice leads." 

But, after all else has been said, who will deny that to 
intellectual curiosity is to be ascribed a large part of 
this enthusiasm? The Greeks, though displaying at 
times a distrust and intolerance of strange doctrines — 
we remember the execution of Socrates and the banish- 
ment of Protagoras and others — were on the whole an 
intellectually curious race, wide-awake to new impres- 
sions and ready to follow out new lines of thought. 
The time, as has been remarked, was one of intellectual 
ferment, and many an eager youth must have had pre- 
sented to his imagination by the professions of the 
sophists the prospect of wandering in new worlds of 
ideas, full of undefined possibilities, lying beyond the 
horizon of his present knowledge. Witness the im- 
patience of the Student in the Clouds l at being inter- 
rupted in his studies by Strepsiades — for this scene, 
though a travesty, must have had some basis of fact. 
Witness also the rapt wonder and respect with which, 
in the Protagoras, 2 the followers of Hippias, gathered 
about their master's chair, ply the distinguished man 
with questions — questions about the universe and 
nature — and listen to his words as though they were 
the words of some oracle. Witness, finally, the eager 
interest with which on many occasions the young men 
of Athens leave their sports to come and engage in 
abstract discussions with Socrates, and the ready recep- 
1 133 ft. a 315 C. 



18 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tiveness they display to new ideas. Few things con- 
nected with the earlier education of the Greeks are 
more interesting and instructive, and few throw greater 
light on the intellectual life of the later centuries, than 
the manner in which these men — Socrates and the 
sophists alike — were received in Greece by the younger 
generation. In view of the enthusiasm, the eagerness 
for new ideas and new facts, the intellectual curiosity, 
which the young men of this age displayed, we do not 
find it difficult to understand how in the following cen- 
turies the philosophical and rhetorical schools of Athens 
were filled with students from all quarters of the world. 
(The influence of Socrates and the sophists on the 
course of Greek education was immense. Not only did 
the instruction that was given in the school of the ypaji- 
fiaTLo-Trjs y or elementary teacher of letters, undergo some 
changes and become greatly broadened, but a number 
of new subjects were brought within the range of in- 
struction. With the increase in the number of subjects 
that were taught, there came also a tendency to differ- 
entiate these subjects into graded groups. In the fifth 
century, reading and writing, counting, music in the 
narrower sense, and gymnastics, had answered for 
nearly all pupils; in the fourth century, or soon after, we 
find the education of the youth divided into three 
periods: certain studies he regularly takes in the first 
period, certain others in the second, and certain others 
in the third. If we do not press the parallelism between 
this system and modern systems too strongly, we may 
perhaps call the first period the period of elementary or 
primary instruction, the second the period of secondary 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 19 

instruction, and the third the period of college or uni- 
versity instruction. We are not, however, to under- 
stand that these grades were, at least at an early date, 
sharply defined, or that there was any hard and fast 
system to which all boys alike were subjected. Between 
the first two grades, especially, there was probably much 
overlapping of instruction, and the line of demarcation 
may here have been not always easy to find. This is 
the form, however, to which the Athenian education 
in- the fourth century B. C, or in the time immediately 
following, approached, and, with some modifications, it 
was the form which probably prevailed in most Grecian 
cities down to the time when all pagan teaching in the 
world at large ceased, in the sixth century A. D. 

(We are also not to believe that the change here in- 
dicated took place in a day. Probably before the end 
of the fourth century something like a graded system — 
a graded system in the limited sense mentioned — had 
become established, but in any case the change, we are 
to think, was a development rather than a premeditated 
innovation. The end was not to be for many centuries 
to come, and in the meantime Greek education was to 
be still further broadened by the accession of new in- 
formation which resulted from the scholastic movement 
in the period following the conquests of Alexander. 1 

1 A graded system is distinctly mentioned in the Axiochus 
(366 D-367 A), a Platonic dialogue of uncertain date and author- 
ship, and in an extract from Teles (of the end of the third cen- 
tury B. C: see Christ, Gr. Lit., p. 584), contained in Stobaeus 
(Flor., 98, 72). Although these notices are probably both later 
than the fourth century, the statement contained in the text, that 
"before the end of the fourth century something like a graded 
system had become established," represents what is, on every 



20 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Can we, then, form any more exact idea of the 
changes that took place in the Athenian education in 
the fourth century B. C. and the centuries following? 
One of the subjects the study of which was specially 
promoted by the sophistic movement was grammar. 
Grammar — taken in the sense in which we use the 
term, for it was also used by the scholars of the Alex- 
andrian time in a far broader sense, to include every- 
thing that pertained to the critical study and interpreta- 
tion of the poets — grammar in our sense of the word 
was sedulously cultivated in the centuries following the 
early sophists, and a mass of fact and theory relative to 

ground of probability, the truth. We know that the academic 
studies, philosophy and rhetoric, were already under way in this 
century, and, with the impulse given by the sophists to the study 
of the sciences, the latter must soon, it would seem, have taken 
their place between the academic studies and those of the ele- 
mentary grade. See, further, on this subject, Girard, L'Ed. 
athen., pp. 221-240. As the two passages referred to above are 
of interest, they are here translated. "Now when the boy," says 
Socrates in the Axiochus, "after experiencing sore trouble, has 
reached the age of seven, there are set over him, with their 
tyrannizing ways, the pedagogue, the teacher of reading and 
writing (ypafifxariffT^s), and the training-master; when he has 
grown older {av^o^vov 8£), the 'critic' (or 'grammarian,' 
npiTiubs), the geometer, the tactician, and a whole swarm of 
masters; finally, when he has been enrolled as an ephebus, the 
cosmete with his threats of punishment, then the Lyceum and the 
Academy, the rule of the gymnasiarch, the rod, and unmeasured 
evils." The passage from Teles is as follows: "When he has 
escaped from the hands of the nurse, he is taken in charge by 
the pedagogue, the training-master, the teacher of reading and 
writing, the music-teacher, and the drawing-master. When he 
has advanced in age (irpo&yei rjXiKla), he receives, further, the 
arithmetician, the geometer, and the horse-trainer. . . . When 
he has become an ephebus, he then stands in dread of the 
cosmete, the training-master, the drill-sergeant, and the gym- 
nasiarch." 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 21 

words, their forms, etc., was accumulated and codified. 
Much of this matter must have worked its way into the 
instruction of the elementary teacher. In fact, we find 
the young pupil of the time of Dionysius of Halicarnas- 
sus, toward the end of the first century B. C, put, at the 
very beginning of his schooling, before he had even 
learned to read and write, through a systematic course 
of grammar, such as it would have been impossible for 
the boy of the time of Socrates to be taught. 1 Much 
else also of the multifarious knowledge accumulated by 
the scholars of the Alexandrian time was probably, at 
least as early as this, made use of by the ypafAfiaTLcrTrjs, 
more especially in that part of his course which had to 
do with the reading and expounding of the poets, and 
we can hardly believe that, even in respect to methods, 
the elementary instruction would long remain un- 
affected by the general spirit of scholarship. 

1 In view of present-day methods, it is interesting to see how 
the Greek boy, in the time of Dionysius, was taught to read. 
"When we learn grammar," says Dionysius (De adm. vi die. in 
Dew,., 52, p. 1115; cf. De comp. verb., 25, p. 211), "we take up 
first the names of the elementary sounds, called letters; then the 
forms and values of the letters. After we have learned these, we 
pass to syllables and their changes, and, these having been mast- 
ered, to the parts of speech — nouns, verbs, and connectives, 
together with their affections — long and short quantities, ac- 
cents both acute and grave, genders, cases, numbers, modal 
endings, and a thousand other things of that sort. After we 
have compassed the knowledge of all these, then, and not till 
then, do we begin to write and to read — syllable by syllable 
at first, and slowly, as the habit is as yet new to us, but, as 
time goes on and continued practice gives strength and confi- 
dence to the soul, smoothly and with ease; and whatever book 
one puts into our hand, we then read at sight (dfxa vo^o-ei), with- 
out going back over all those rules that we have learned." See 
Girard, L'Ed. athen., pp. 130. 226. 



22 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

In the fourth century B. C. — possibly not far from 
the middle of the century, though the exact date is 
naturally uncertain — a new subject was introduced 
into the elementary course in various Greek cities — 
drawing. ^The subjects," says Aristotle, 1 "by which 
it is customary to educate children, are, we may say, 
four in number: letters, gymnastics, music, and, in 
some places, a fourth subject, drawing"; and the fact 
is corroborated by other evidence. 8 The introduction 
of drawing into the curriculum of the primary school 
was perhaps not directly due to the sophistic impulse; 
we are told by Pliny 3 that the movement started at 
Sicyon. In at least one place — Teos — comedy seems 
to have been read in the schools in the second century 
B. C, and it may later have been so at Athens. 4 

1 Polit, v. (viii.) 2, 3 (p. 1337 b). The reason that Aristotle 
gives for the teaching of drawing is that a knowledge of this sub- 
ject not only prevents our being cheated in our daily commercial 
intercourse with men, but also enhances our appreciation of 
physical beauty. Compare Herbert Spencer, An Autobiography, 
vol. i. ch. xi. p. 233: "The practice of drawing or modeling 
is to be encouraged not merely with a view to the worth of the 
things produced, for, in the great majority of cases, these will 
be worthless; but it is to be encouraged as increasing the ap- 
preciation of both Nature and Art. There results from it a 
revelation of natural beauties of form and colour which to undis- 
ciplined perceptions remain invisible; and there results, also, a 
greatly exalted enjoyment of painting and sculpture. The 
pleasure which truthful rendering gives is increased by increasing 
the knowledge of the traits to be rendered." 

2 Stob., Flor., 98, 72. 

3 iV. H., xxxv. 77 (graphicen, hoc est pictura in buxo, perhaps 
painting). 

4 See Girard, UEd. athen., pp. 150, 151. In Isocrates's view, 
music, grammar, and all other introductory studies had simply 
a disciplinary value (J)e antid., 265-267). See p. 33. 






EDUCATION AT ATHENS 23 

Other changes doubtless occurred in the elementary 
instruction of the Greeks in the period from the fourth 
to the first century B. C, both in respect to matter and 
in respect to methods. Music, for instance, was orig- 
inally taught because it was considered to be a form 
of education for the soul, but in Aristotle's time 
most people studied it to give themselves and their 
friends pleasure. Such a change in the point of view 
must, we should say, have resulted in a change in the 
character of the instruction. 1 As early as the time 
of Aristophanes a new tendency in music was de- 
plored. 2 

In the second period of his education the youth of 
these later centuries came under the direction of several 
instructors. First in point of importance, perhaps, was 
the KpLTi/cos, the * critic/ or, as he was later also called, 
the 7/oa/x/iaTi/co<?, the teacher or expounder of literature, 
especially poetic literature (not to be confounded with 
the ypafiiiaTicTTrjs , or elementary teacher of letters). 3 The 
instruction of the ypa/xfiarta-ri]^ probably did not extend 
very far into the region of exposition, though, where 
every teacher was free to teach what he could and chose 

1 Aristot., Polit., v. (viii.) 2, 3 (p. 1337 b). 

s In the famous passage in the Clouds, 967 ff. The simple 
hymns of an earlier time had given place to a more complicated 
music, full of strange variations. 

3 [Plato], Axiochus, 366 E. On the words kpitik6s and ypaufxa- 
tik6s, and the duties of the 'grammarian,' see Sandys, Hist. 
Clas. Schol, i. pp. 6-11; Girard, L'Ed. athen., pp. 224-227; 
Quint., Inst, or., i. 4 ff. Gregory Nazianzene (xliii. 23) gives the 
following as the 'grammarian's' duties: "to Grecize the tongue, 
gather information, regulate metres, and set down the laws for 
poems." 



24 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

to, it may often have tended to encroach on the field of 
the ypafjLiJLaTL/cos. l In general, however, where the ypafi- 
fjiaTKTTrjs left off, the ypafifiartKo^ began. The special 
field of the latter was the exposition and illustration of 
the poets, but the range of his instruction was broad 
and included questions from many fields — grammar, 
metre, history, morals, science, etc. Much attention 
was given to clear enunciation and good expression. 
The texts of the authors read were discussed and ana- 
lyzed, and beauties of style and thought were pointed 
out and commented upon. Sometimes literary appre- 
ciations were attempted. In illustrating and expound- 
ing his authors, the teacher would take the opportunity 
to communicate to his pupils a mass of antiquarian and 
other lore, would discuss questions of etymology and the 
meaning of words, and would at times, doubtless, sug- 
gest emendations of the text. As time went on, the dig- 
nity and importance of the ypa/jL/jLaTi/cos increased, and 
in the later centuries of pagan education he became in 
many cities a recognized factor of the university, with 
imperial or municipal appointment. 

Other teachers whom the pupil encountered in the 
secondary grade were the geometer and the arithme- 
tician. 2 Geometry had been in great favor as early 
as the fifth century, as is evident from many passages in 
Plato and from Aristophanes, but in the fourth century, 
or shortly after, it became a recognized branch of edu- 

1 Especially was this so in later times. Libanius, between the 
ages of fifteen and twenty, studied under a ypaixnariaT^s (Lib., 
i. 9, 14; cf. ib., ep., 408). 

3 [Plato], Axiochus, 366 E; Stob., Flor., 98, 72. 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 25 

cation, and was taught by special teachers. The arith- 
metic that was taught by the arithmetician we should 
probably understand as something more advanced than 
the simple counting which had formed a part of the in- 
struction of the ypafApaTKTTrjs in the fifth century. Still 
other branches of study, as astronomy and geography, 
came to the fore in the fourth century and the centuries 
that followed, 1 though the beginnings of these studies, 
as of those that have already been mentioned, reached 
far back of that time. 

One feature of the education that has here been 
sketched deserves special attention — the great stress 
that was laid in it on the cultivation of the voice. 
Reading meant, for the Greek boy, not reading silently, 
but reading aloud (avayiyvaa/cetv). From his earliest 
school-days, he was taught to utter his words clearly and 
distinctly, and to read with proper emphasis and ex- 
pression. Most of the elementary instruction, and 
probably much of the more advanced, was given orally, 
and the boy was required to recite his lesson rather than 
to write it. All this is, of course, in accordance with the 
practice of the whole Greek people, to whom the spoken 
word was ever of greater importance than the writ- 
ten; it also accounts in part for the great vogue of 
the later sophists, among whom the cultivation of 
musical utterance and dramatic expression combined 
with harmonious language was developed into an 
art. 

The age at which the boy at Athens, and probably in 
most other Grecian cities, was first sent to school was 
1 Cf. Girard, UFA. athen., pp. 227-231. 



26 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

about five or six. 1 The length of his stay depended on 
many considerations, not least of which, we may be- 
lieve, were the means and condition of his parents. At 
the age of eighteen he became, at Athens, legally of age, 
and was then taken in hand by the state and enrolled 
in the college of the ephebi. He was also ready, at about 
the same age, to take up one or both of the two higher 
branches of learning — philosophy and rhetoric. For 
it was these two, philosophy and rhetoric, which, start- 
ing, at the time of the sophistic movement, from a 
single stream, reached forth, as it were in two arms, into 
the succeeding centuries, and formed the two great 
branches of academic study. In the earliest of these 
centuries they touched, on one side, the state institution 
of the ephebi. To the consideration of these three sub- 
jects, therefore, philosophy, rhetoric, and the ephebic 
college, we must devote a few pages before proceeding 
further. 

Of the various schools of philosophy that were 
founded at Athens and elsewhere by the followers of 
Socrates, after the death of the latter, none survived 
to have an independent existence, except the four great 
. schools, the Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and 
the Epicurean. 8 Almost the whole philosophical in- 

1 The author of the Axiochus sets it at seven (see p. 19, n. 1). 
In the second century A. D. it is stated to have been six or 
seven (Soranus, Ars obs., 92); in the fourth century A. D., 
before five (Joh. Chrys., vol. iii. 109 Migne). At twelve, accord- 
ing to Soranus, the boy was sent to the ' grammarian ' and the 
geometer. 

2 The Cynic teaching had for a long time great influence, and 
Cynics swarmed in Grecian lands as late as the second century 
A. D. Cynicism, however, tended to merge into Stoicism, and 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 27 

struction of the eight centuries or more from the time of 
Plato to the closing of the Neo-Platonic school of phi- 
losophy at the beginning of the sixth century A. D. was 
connected with these four schools or with some one or 
more of them, and up to the time of Augustus, at 
least, Athens continued to be the head-quarters of this 
instruction. For it was here that the schools had been 
established and it was here that they had their cor- 
porate existence. 

| The first of the four schools to be established at 
Amens was the Academic. Its founder was Plato. 
When, in 347, Plato died, he bequeathed his house and 
its belongings, near the grove of the Academy, where 
he had been accustomed, during the last forty years of 
his life, to teach and converse, to his nephew Speusippus, 
who, at his death, bequeathed them to his pupils, or, in 
trust, to his successor, Xenocrates. The estate thus 
passed into the hands, and became the property, of the 
school in a corporate capacity. The members of the 
school formed a religious brotherhood — a 0tWo? — 
based on a worship of the Muses. Its Head, or leader, 
called the scholar ch (°"%o^ap%o?), was, in each case, either 
appointed by the preceding scholarch, or was chosen by 
the school itself, after the latter's death, and perhaps in 
accordance with his recommendation. 1 The purpose of 

the lack of a distinct school of Cynicism in the second century 
A. D. is attested by the failure of Marcus Aurelius, when he at that 
time organized the philosophical department of the University at 
Athens (see p. 92), to make provision for a school of that sect. 
1 Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., ii. 1, pp. 985, 986. Xenocrates was 
chosen by vote of the students after Speusippus's death {Index 
Herculan.y 6, 7). Occasionally a scholarch abdicated during his 
lifetime. 



28 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the society was twofold: scientific inquiry by the mem- 
bers in common and the transmission of knowledge by 
instruction. 1 At stated intervals banquets were held, to 
which guests were invited from without. 

The foundation of the Peripatetic school, which was 
established some years later, near the Lyceum, by 
Theophrastus, the follower of Aristotle, was similar to 
that of the Academic. This, too, was a religious founda- 
tion, and the property was held in trust by a number of 
the members. The method of appointment to the 
headship of this school seems to have varied. Straton, 
the successor of Theophrastus, appointed in his will 
Lycon, and expressed the hope that the members of the 
school would acquiesce in this choice. Lycon left the 
selection of his successor to ten of his most trusted 
friends and pupils. In this school, too, provision was 
made for banquets. 2 

The Stoic school, though it had a name, had no local 
habitation such as the other schools had. Its members, 
to be sure, frequented, in the earlier part of its career, 
the Painted Stoa, but it acquired no private property 
and was not incorporated. It continued, however, to 
have an independent existence, and perhaps, in other 
respects than those mentioned (except, of course, in the 
matter of its tenets), it differed little from its rival 
schools. 



1 When the philosophical schools began to compete with the 
schools of rhetoric for the young men of all lands, they claimed 
to offer the only proper training for life, and so a new purpose was 
then added (see pp. 72; 79, n. 1). 

8 Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., ii. 2, pp. 807 ff. t 925. For Straton and 
Lycon, see Diog. Laert., v. 62, 70. 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 29 

i^The Epicurean school started on its career with the 
house and garden of its founder, Epicurus, but this 
property seems in the course of time to have been, at 
least in part, dissipated. 1 The members of the school, 
following the directions contained in Epicurus's will, 
met once a month to enjoy a commemorative banquet, 
and, besides, celebrated with an annual feast their 
founder's birthday. Epicurus seems to have appointed 
his own successor and to have contemplated that future 
Heads of the School would do likewise; though at a 
later time (121 A. D.) it appears that in case the person 
thus appointed proved to be an unfortunate choice, 
he could be set aside and another appointed in his 
stead by vote of the students. 3 

(We see that each of these schools (with the exception, 
apparently, of the Stoic school) started with a certain 
amount of private property, and was therefore on the 
way toward being on an independent and self-supporting 
basis. From time to time, in the case of at least one of 
them — the Academic school — and perhaps in the 
case of others, bequests were made by generous patrons 
of learning, and thus still further means were provided 
for study. Before long the teachers began to take fees 
from their students; this had been done by the sophists 
in the fifth century, but Aristippus, the Cyrenaic, is 
said to have been the first to introduce the custom into 
a school, and his example was followed by Speusippus, 
the nephew of Plato. 3 

1 In Cicero's time the garden was in the hands of a distin- 
guished Roman. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., iii. 1, p. 370, n. 1. 

2 Diog. Laert., x. 17; Dessau, Insc. Lot. sel., ii. 2, 1906, No. 7784. 

3 Diog. Laert., ii. 65; iv. 2; Luc, Vit. auct., 24. 



30 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

With regard to the internal management of the 
schools, it would naturally be to the advantage of all 
members of any one of them to have as their Head one 
who could preserve harmony and command respect 
among the members themselves. "And I leave my 
garden walk," wrote Lycon, the third scholarch of the 
Peripatetic school, in his will, 1 "to those of my asso- 
ciates who have signified that they wish to use it — 
Bulon, Callinus, Ariston, Amphion, Lycon, Python, 
Aristomachus, Heracleius, Lycomedes, and my nephew 
Lycon. Let them elect as their Head the one whom 
they think most likely to remain attached to the pur- 
suit of philosophy and most able to hold the school 
together. And let the rest of my associates co-operate 
with these, both for my sake and for the sake of the 
place." The other members were supposed, in a spirit 
of loyalty, to subordinate themselves to the Head, 
while they probably also gave instruction as under- 
teachers. Sometimes, though perhaps rarely in these 
earlier years, a member separated himself entirely 
from the school and set up a school of his own. 2 

The purpose of these details has been to show what 
one of the earliest forms of college in Greece was like. 
To these schools, or colleges, during the first three hun- 
dred years after their foundation, students of all ages 
came, in great numbers, from all quarters of the Greek 
world, and, during a part of that time, from the West- 
ern world as well ; while, as we shall see later, the schools 

*Diog. Laert., v. 70. 

2 See Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand d. phil. Schid., p. 30. In 
general, for the history and external condition of the philosophical 
schools, see this article. 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 31 

formed, in the second and third centuries after Christ, 
a part of the University of Athens. It is beyond our 
purpose to discuss here the tenets of the different sects, 
but we may observe, in passing, that the schools carried 
on in several directions the impulse given to study by 
Socrates and the sophists — noticeably in the direc- 
tions of ethical, metaphysical, and scientific inquiry. 

Let us now turn to the second of the three forms of 
college established in these early centuries on Grecian 
soil — the school of rhetoric. The race of sophists did 
not end with those distinguished members of it who 
lived in the second half of the fifth century, but of those 
who followed in the fourth century none gained such 
distinction, or influenced so greatly the course of Greek 
education, as one who, while inveighing bitterly against 
the sophists of his day, was himself perhaps the greatest 
of the sophists either of that or of the preceding age — 
Isocrates. 

(isocrates was born in 436 B. C. and studied under 
some of the most famous teachers of his time — Pro- 
tagoras, Prodicus, Gorgias, Theramenes — besides being 
influenced strongly by Socrates. After completing his 
education, he became a logographer, or professional 
writer of law speeches, and this profession he practised 
for a number of years, until about 390 or a little before 
that time. He then turned his attention to the teaching 
of rhetoric, and opened a school, at first, it is said, at 
Chios. Shortly after he removed to Athens and set up 
a school there. He did not die until 338, and so for 
about half a century his school at Athens was a gath- 
ering-point and centre of attraction for those who 



32 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

wished to be educated in the higher genteel learning of 
the day. Students flocked thither from all parts of the 
Greek world, and many of them were, or became in 
later years, famous — the statesmen Timotheus, son of ' 
Conon, and Leodamas; the orators Lycurgus, Hyper- 
eides, and Isseus; the historians Ephorus and Theo- 
pompus; and many others. 

Isocrates charged for his course, which lasted from 
three to four years, 1,000 drachma? ($180). Like the 
sophists against whom he inveighs, he professed to 
prepare young men for the duties of public life, but, 
unlike them, he attained his object rather by educating 
the mind and character of his pupils than by supplying 
them with a mass of ready-prepared material. The 
means to this preparation was the study of rhetoric and 
eloquence, or, in one word, oratory. Ispcrates taught 
his subject, not as a cut-and-dried system, but as a 
philosophy, which was to be adapted to the aptitude 
and ability of the individual student. We see, in 
Isocrates's attitude toward his subject, again a partial 
explanation of the great vogue which rhetoric later had 
in the educational curriculum of the Greeks. Rhetoric, 
correctly taught, not only formed the accomplished 
orator or advocate, but educated the taste, the judg- 
ment, and the character. The form of eloquence to 
which Isocrates gave his special attention was neither 
the deliberative, such as was used in the public assem- 
blies, nor the juristic, but the so-called epideictic, or 
display oratory — that form that was suited to the ex- 
pounding of great political subjects of common interest. 

In comparing Isocrates's school with the schools of 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 33 

philosophy, we notice certain important differences. In 
the first place, Isocrates's school devoted less attention 
to form. The schools of philosophy were, generally 
speaking, corporations possessed of landed property 
and having a regular succession in the headship. The 
school of Isocrates was an assemblage of students drawn 
together by the name of one man and acknowledging, 
apparently, no other bond of union except a common 
admiration for their master and a common desire to 
profit by his instruction. We notice, secondly, that the 
teaching in the school of Isocrates was, on the one hand, 
less speculative, and, on the other hand, less technical 
and scientific than the teaching in the schools of phi- 
losophy became. It was a form of training, and it pro- 
vided a broad and liberal culture. Other subjects, such 
as mathematics, the sciences, history, were only pre- 
paratory studies, not ends in themselves; they provided 
at best a technical education. We should say, then, 
that the rhetorical school contained more of the ele- 
ments of permanency in the Greek world, for the reason 
that it answered more nearly to the genuinely Greek 
conception of education — a preparation for active life 
in the service of the state on the basis of the perfect 
development of the individual. 1 The emphasizing of 

1 Though the general tendency at this time was toward a more 
individualistic conception of education, there was little that was 
individualistic in the sophistical education of the first five centu- 
ries after Christ. Here is Isocrates's view of the educated man 
(Panath., 30 ff.): "Whom, then, do I call educated, since I re- 
fuse this name to those who have learned only certain trades, or 
certain sciences, or have had only certain faculties developed? 
First, those who manage well the daily affairs of life as they arise, 
and whose judgment is accurate and rarely errs when aiming at 

/ 



34 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

this fact at a time when the bounds of knowledge were 
widening in every direction, and education was under- 
going a process of transformation, is one of the import- 
ant services which Isocrates rendered to the cause of 
education. Otherwise also his influence was important : 
he made, namely, oratory one of the regular studies of 
the Grecian youth, and thus opened the way to that 
wonderful expansion of oratorical studies which took 
place in the second century after Christ. Of Isocrates's 
influence on the literary prose style of the Greeks, 
though it was most important, we are not here con- 
cerned to speak. 

When Isocrates died — or even before he died, for 
he was ninety-eight years of age at the time of his 

the expedient. Then, those who associate in dignified and hon- 
orable fashion with all with whom they come in contact, bearing 
easily and good-naturedly what is unpleasant or offensive in 
others, and softening, as much as possible, their own asperities 
of manner. Further, those who never become the slaves of 
pleasure, and who by misfortunes are not unduly cast down — 
bearing themselves in their presence manfully and in a manner 
worthy of our common nature. Fourthly, and most important 
of all, those who are uncorrupted by good fortune and do not lose 
their heads and become arrogant, but, retaining control of 
themselves as intelligent beings, rejoice not less in the goods 
they have acquired at their birth by their own nature and 
intelligence than in the benefits that have been cast in their 
way by chance. Those whose souls are in permanent and har- 
monious accord, not with one of these things, but with all of 
them, these, I say, are wise and perfect men, possessed of all the 
virtues. This is my opinion with regard to educated men." 
Elsewhere he tells us what sophistry does for a man (De antid., 
204): "Some (i. e,, of those who associate with sophists) are 
turned out perfect masters (i. e., of the art of sophistry); some, 
able teachers; while those who have chosen to live a private life 
are rendered more cultivated in their intercourse with others 
than they were before, and more exact judges and counsellors of 
speech than the majority of men." 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 35 

death — his school passed out of existence, but the 
influence of the man and his teaching survived and 
affected strongly the subsequent course of rhetorical 
education. Shortly after 330, ^Eschines is said to have 
transplanted the study of oratory to Rhodes. During 
the succeeding centuries oratory continued to be taught 
in the schools of Asia, and probably also to some extent 
in those of Athens. 

The third form of college which we have to consider 
is the College of the Ephebi. The Greek word efyrjfios 
signifies primarily one who has arrived at maturity. 
The legal age of maturity was, at Athens, eighteen, and 
the time from his eighteenth birthday (or from the be- 
ginning of the Attic official year that followed his 
eighteenth birthday) to his twentieth birthday (or to 
the beginning of the Attic official year that followed his 
twentieth birthday) the Athenian youth passed in an 
apprenticeship of arms to the state. During this whole 
period he was called an €(/>?? /3o?. The whole body of 
young men who were at any time serving in this ap- 
prenticeship constituted the College of the Ephebi. 
When the Athenian youth was about to enter upon his 
nineteenth year, he presented himself, first before the 
citizens of his deme, and then before the fiovXrj, to be 
examined relative to his age and his parentage. It 
having been proven that he was really eighteen, and 
that he had been born of Athenian parents, his name 
was entered on the official register of his deme and he 
became a citizen forthwith. The first duty of the newly- 
enrolled e$77/3o? was to take the ephebic oath, which 
bound him not to dishonor the arms which he bore, 



36 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

not to desert his companion in battle, to fight for his j 
gods and his home, to advance the interests of his 
country, to submit to the rule of those above him, to 
obey the existing laws and oppose all who attempted to 
break them, and to respect the religion of his ancestors.] 
He then entered upon the course of discipline which 
formed the curriculum of the college and was designed 
to make of him one who could, in time of necessity, 
defend his country. The first year was a year of pre- 
liminary training; the recruit was then to be broken in. 
Besides receiving instruction in the ordinary athletic 
exercises of the gymnasium, he was taught the use of 
the bow, the javelin, etc., was, in some cases at least, 
made to engage in horse-riding and rowing, and was 
trained in the various military manoeuvres and forma- 
tions. At the end of the first year, he received from the 
state a buckler and lance, and was then put on patrol 
and guard duty along the frontier and in the various 
forts of Attica; at the same time he still continued his 
military practice. At many of the public festivals the 
ephebi appeared in a body and took part in the pro- 
ceedings, their presence and manoeuvres adding much 
to the pomp of the occasion. 

Such, roughly, seems to have been the ephebic sys- 
tem as it was up to about the beginning of the third 
century B. C. We see that it was almost wholly mili- 
tary in character and that it was a state institution. 
The various instructors — the TraL&oTpifirjs, or instructor 
in gymnastics, the o7r\o/ia%o?, or instructor in the use of 
arms, the a/covno-Trjs , or instructor in the art of javelin- 
throwing, the rof ot?7?, or instructor in bowmanship, and 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 37 

others — were appointed and remunerated by the state. 
The <7<o<f>povLaTaC i or superintendents, who were com- 
missioned to oversee the morals and conduct of the 
ephebi, were state-appointed officials, and the whole 
college was probably under the general supervision and 
control of the o-Tpa,Trj<yoi (the * generals/ the most im- 
portant of the Athenian magistrates) and the Areopagus. 
Had the college been nothing more than this, it would 
not call for our special attention here. In the course of 
time, however, it underwent certain changes. Toward 
the close of the fourth century, with the decline of the 
military spirit in Greece, and the advent of new con- 
ditions, apprenticeship in the college, it would seem, 
ceased to be obligatory on all who were entitled to 
carry arms, and the time of service was reduced from 
two years to one year. Still later, toward the end of 
the second century B. C. apparently, foreigners began 
to be admitted to the college, and from that time on 
they appear in great numbers on the college rolls. 
Not only this, but intellectual studies became a part 
of the curriculum of the college. We learn from 
the inscriptions — for it is from inscriptions that we 
gain the most of our information with regard to the 
ephebi — that the members attended the lectures of 
philosophers, rhetoricians, and * grammarians/ in the 
gymnasia of the city, in a body and under the leadership 
of their Director. The Director was, in these later 
times, known as the /coo-fiTjTrjS, and his duties were to 
oversee the health of the students, to maintain discipline 
among them, to conduct them to their lectures in the 
gymnasia, to attend to their assignment to the various 



38 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

military posts, etc. Every year the outgoing ephebi 
presented to the gymnasium known as the Ptolemaion, 
which was probably founded through the liberality of 
Ptolemy Philadelphus not long after 300 B. C, a hun- 
dred books, as a contribution to the college library. 
At the end of the term of their apprenticeship, the ephebi 
appeared before the Council — the fiovkrj — and gave 
an exhibition of their proficiency in the use of arms. 
There seems also to have been some arrangement 
whereby examinations or exhibitions, either regular or 
occasional, were held in certain intellectual studies as 
well — grammar, geometry, rhetoric, and music are 
those mentioned. It seems possible that, in this later 
period, provision was also made for the preparation of 
students for the ephebic college. If so, the gymnasium 
called the Diogeneion f founded probably in the third 
century B. C, was the place where this preparation was 
provided, and the studies mentioned above may have 
been those, or a part of those, in which the candidate 
was required to pass a successful examination before 
he was admitted to the college. 1 

1 For the ephebic college, see Girard, L'Ed. athen., pp. 271- 
327, 339-342; the article ephebi in Daremberg and Saglio's Dic- 
tionary; Dumont, Essai sur Veph'ebie attique; W. Dittenberger, 
De ephebis atticis. The time of the organization of the ephebic 
system into a military academy is uncertain and matter of con- 
troversy. The general belief has been that it dated from the 
early part of the fifth century B. C, but Wilamowitz-Mollendorff 
has called this date in question and has argued, with much 
plausibility, that the organization dated from about the time of 
Aristotle (Arist. u. Athen, i. pp. 191-194; followed by A. A. 
Bryant in Harv. Stud, in Class. Phil., xviii. pp. 76-88). Two 
inscriptions found at Eretria and discussed by Richardson and 
Heermance in Amer. Jour, of Arch., 11, 1896, pp. 173 ff., 188 ff., 



EDUCATION AT ATHENS 39 

(We see, then, how this ephebic college gradually, in 
the later centuries of its existence — it continued till at 
least the third century A. D. — became dovetailed into 
the higher education of the day. The military and 
gymnastic training of the college was originally the 
main feature, and the instruction in this line was pro- 
vided by the state. When, in the course of time, the 
educational field of the Greeks became greatly en- 
larged, the ephebi began to attend the lectures of the 
philosophers, the rhetoricians, and others, but purely 
in a voluntary way; instruction in the intellectual 
branches was not provided by the state, nor was it im- 
posed, though it seems to have been sanctioned and 
even favored. About the same time other changes took 
place which affected the character of the college. The 
term of service was reduced to one year, the service, 
apparently, ceased to be obligatory, and foreigners were 
admitted. The restriction on the age of entrance was 
also removed or allowed to fall into abeyance. The 
college became more and more an aristocratic body, in 
which the intellectual studies tended to take precedence 
of the military training. Many young men, after they 
had completed their year of ephebic service, continued 

are of special interest in connection with the ephebic system. 
In the first (later than 146 B. C.) it is mentioned that the annual 
gymnasiarch furnished at his own expense a prjrwp. In the 
second, mention is made of an 6p.7jpi.Kbs <pt.\6\oyos. It is fur- 
ther worthy of note that the lectures were open to all who took 
an interest therein (1st inscr.: ofripes 4<rx°^ a t ov * v T ^ 4 yvpvaaLwc 
tois tc iratalp Kal i<pr)fiois Kal tois AXXois tois fiov\op.£voi.s tt)v airb twc 
tocojJtwj/ dxpeKLav 4irid4x €<T0al - 2nd inscr.: [dVris 4] <rx6\a^eu 4v 
tw[i] yvp.va<rl(j)i tois re i(pf)f3ois Kal [iraialp Kal tois] AWois iraat rott 
o]lK€i(t)S SiaKeip.4vots irpbs 7rat5[e/aj']). 



40 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

to study with the philosophers and rhetoricians, while 
comparatively few of those who came to Athens to 
study entered the body at all. In the later centuries, 
the college may, for our purposes, be left out of con- 
sideration. 

We have seen how, in the course of time, there was 
developed from the simple fifth-century education of 
the Greeks a system of graded education, and how, in 
the highest of the three grades that were evolved, 
there was again a threefold division. In tracing this 
process of development, however, we have gone far 
beyond the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. The proc- 
ess in question was gradual and occupied many cen- 
turies; it has seemed best, however, to speak of the new 
forms here, because the beginnings of them belonged 
to the fifth and fourth centuries. The ephebic system 
dated certainly from the fourth century, and possibly 
even from the fifth, while the philosophical and rhetor- 
ical schools were institutions which, in their inception, 
were of the fifth century. 



CHAPTER III 
THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 

In the year 334 B. C, Alexander, the son of Philip of 
Macedon, crossed at the head of his army into Asia and 
started on his march against the Great King of Persia, 
and in the early summer of 323 he died at Babylon. 
The eleven years that elapsed between these two events 
were most momentous in the history of Greece. They 
mark the opening of a new era. The political inde- 
pendence of Greece had been lost at the battle of 
Chseroneia in 338, but the conquests of Alexander 
opened the way to the establishment of her language 
and civilization throughout the East. 

Although the political history of the time immediately 
following the death of Alexander is, at first sight, be- 
wildering, the period, if we can disregard some of the 
side issues and lesser complications and keep our atten- 
tion fixed on the main trend of events, is one of supreme 
interest. Every period is, in a way, a period of change, 
but at this time events were moving rapidly and the 
future was big with undefined possibilities. New forms, 
and new ideas of government, were coming to the fore, 
and the political map of the eastern world was under- 
going transformation. 

The first professed motive of action on the part of the 

generals of Alexander, after the death of their leader, 

41 



42 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

was the desire to preserve the Empire intact for his 
heirs. The legitimate heirs were an imbecile youth, 
Philip Arrhidaeus by name, half-brother of Alexander; 
a posthumous son; and the queen, Roxana. A regent, 
or protector, was immediately appointed to manage the 
affairs of the Empire till such time as the son should 
come of age. But, though the unity of the Empire was 
thus preserved in name, evidence was not long wanting 
that each of the generals was working for himself alone, 
and that the Empire was destined in the end either to 
fall apart into separate kingdoms or to become the prey 
of that one of the generals who should show himself the 
craftiest in diplomacy and the strongest in arms. It is 
not necessary to repeat here the story of the battles and 
intrigues that marked the settlement of this question, 
but the matter was at length decided in favor of the 
division of power. In Egypt was established the dy- 
nasty of the Lagidse, or the Ptolemies, in Syria and the 
far-eastern lands that of the Seleucids, and in Mace- 
donia that of the Antigonids. Many native tribes in the 
interior of Asia acknowledged no foreign sovereign, and 
most of the Greek cities in Asia Minor and on the 
islands enjoyed perhaps something more than a nominal 
independence. Greece was claimed, as an appanage, 
by the Macedonian kings, but they were never very 
successful in asserting their authority in that land. 
Early in the period Philetserus established the Attalid 
dynasty at Pergamum in Asia Minor. 

This was the world in which the new Greek, or so- 
called Hellenistic, civilization spread, with such won- 
derful results in the way of literature, art, and learning, 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 43 

in the centuries that immediately followed the death of 
Alexander. Many new cities were founded by Alex- 
ander and his successors, both in the far-distant parts 
of the Empire, or what had once constituted the Em- 
pire, and also in the midst of the older civilization, and 
these cities all became centres of Hellenism. 

(In what, we may ask, did this Hellenism, this new- 
old civilization, consist? It is impossible to believe 
that the new cities founded by Alexander and his suc- 
cessors were in every case populated, even in small part, 
by Greeks. Some of the new cities that were planted 
near others that were already Greek doubtless received 
large contributions of population from these, and, again, 
many so-called new cities were nothing more than reor- 
ganizations of already-existing communities, with per- 
haps a change of name. In some cases, there may have 
been a nucleus, or a sprinkling, of Greek-Macedonian 
soldiery from the army of the founder, but often the main 
part of the population was of native origin. In what, 
then, if not always in population, did the Hellenism of 
these cities consist ? Probably, first, in the architecture of 
many of the buildings. The new cities were, in many 
cases at least, built on a generous scale, with broad, 
straight streets crossing each other at right angles and 
(in the case of the main thoroughfares) flanked by 
colonnades and public buildings. 1 Greek architects 
were employed to build these and other structures, and 
Greek artists to embellish them. Secondly, we may 

1 The colonnades were, in some cases, of imperial date (see 
Forster in Jahrbuch d. kaiserl. deutsch. arch. Inst., xii. [1897], 
pp. 121 ff., and H. C. Butler in Publ. of the Amer. Arch. Ex. to 
Syria in 1899-1900, ii. pp. 50, 51). 



44 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

conceive the Hellenism of these cities to have been 
evident in the spirit and policy of the administration. 
There was in most places a tendency to imitate, in 
governmental, educational, and other matters, the in- 
stitutions and methods of procedure of Greece, or, 
specifically, of Athens, and the Macedonian rulers fol- 
lowed, so far as was compatible with monarchy, Greek 
precedents. Again, the language and intellectual at- 
mosphere of the Court in the various seats of govern- 
ment were undoubtedly Greek. 

(We often wonder, in the case of some great change 
that has occurred in the life of a nation — such as that 
from republicanism to imperialism at Rome, or this in 
Greece that was brought about by the conquests of 
Alexander — what must have been the feelings and the 
thoughts of the people who lived at the time such 
change took place, and to what extent they realized it. 
It is not easy to escape from our own environment and 
to look at the events of to-day as past history, and so, 
unless the change in question was violent and quickly 
accomplished, we must guard against assuming too 
great consciousness on the part of the people concerned. 
One result of the conquests of Alexander was to raise 
Greece, and especially Athens, to a place apart in the 
imaginations of men. Her active history, so men felt, 
had in a way ceased; she was now to be venerated and 
valued for what she had done. This feeling and this 
spirit of reverence were particularly noticeable in the 
attitude of the Macedonian conquerors and of many 
foreign peoples toward Greece, but the Greeks them- 
selves seem, with the loss of their political independence, 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 45 

to have gained, if possible, something more cf ven- 
eration for their past. The Greeks, indeed, were 
always, even down to the days of Hadrian and far 
beyond, proud of their ancient glory and tenacious of 
old forms. 

In many ways was the feeling of the Macedonian 
conquerors manifested. We remember how, in his far- 
eastern campaign, Alexander, after having, with great 
difficulty, crossed the Hydaspes River, exclaimed, "O 
je Athenians, will ye believe what dangers I undergo 
to merit your praise?" 1 And this was the attitude of 
the Successors also. The name of Greek culture and 
Greek learning had been familiar to the Macedonians 
from their boyhood, and all their examples of human 
greatness were drawn from the literature and history of 
Greece. It is not strange, therefore, that they should 
wish to receive the praise of the Greeks and try to imi- 
tate by their deeds the heroes of Grecian song. Nearly 
all the Successors posed at one time or another as phil- 
Hellenes, "friends of the Greeks," and in their cam- 
paigns against one another they sought to gain prestige 
by proclaiming themselves "liberators of Greece." 
This was the battle-cry of Polysperchon when opposing 
Cassander in 319, of Demetrius Poliorcetes when ex- 
pelling from Athens his namesake of Phalerum in 307, 
of Antiochus the Great when advancing on the West 
in 192, and of many others of these rulers again and 
again. This was also the cry of the Romans when they 
first entered the country, and we know how Flamininus, 
at the Isthmian games of 196, proclaimed the inde- 

1 Plut., Alex., 60. 



46 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

pendence of all Greece. Such proceedings were a 
tribute to the civilization and glory of this country 
and a recognition of her singular position among 
the peoples of the earth. Greek men of letters were 
honored at the courts of nearly all the Successors, 
and Greek philosophers were deputed by individuals 
and communities to serve on important missions — for 
the attitude of the world toward philosophers had 
changed since the fifth century, and they were now 
held in high esteem. The Macedonians, further, vied 
with one another in doing honor to Greek cities, 
and especially to Athens. Alexander, after his first 
victory in Asia, sent to Athens three hundred shields, 
and he later restored to the Athenians the statues of 
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which had been carried 
away by Xerxes and deposited at Susa. On one occa- 
sion, after the recovery of Alexander from sickness, his 
mother made an offering on the acropolis at Athens. 
Demetrius Poliorcetes, following the example of Alex- 
ander, sent suits of armor to Athens, and Strabo says of 
Cassander, 1 that, while in general he showed a most 
tyrannical spirit, he was toward Athens, when he made 
that city subject to himself, considerate and indulgent. 
Antiochus IV — and he was only one of many — be- 
stowed valuable gifts on the Greek cities of Asia Minor, 
the islands, and the European mainland — gifts such 
as temples, altars, colonnades, etc. Athens received 
from him special attention. Here he continued, on a 
grander scale, the construction of the great temple of 
Zeus, which had been begun by Peisistratus some three 

1 ix. p. 398. 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 47 

hundred and fifty years before and was destined to be 
finished only in the time of Hadrian, three hundred 
years later; and he affixed to the southern wall of the 
acropolis, above the theatre, a gilt Gorgon's head on a 
gilded segis. This same Antiochus, when he was al- 
lowed to depart from Rome, where he had been detained 
as a hostage, repaired to Athens, and was there made 
an Athenian citizen and elected to the highest Athenian 
magistracy, and, though a prince, he felt himself hon- 
ored by the recognition. Many of the Macedonian 
princes in those days went to Athens to receive their 
education or to live for a while in the light of Greek 
civilization and culture. This was the case with De- 
metrius, younger brother of Antigonus Gonatas, and 
it was the case with Antiochus Grypos (Antiochus " the 
Hooked-nosed "). Foreign princes also, in many cases, 
considered it a privilege to be admitted within the pale 
of Hellenism, and styled themselves on their coins or 
otherwise phil-Hellenes. This was true of kings of the 
Jews, of kings of the Arabs, and of kings of the Par- 
thians. The Bactrian Empire also assimilated much of 
the Greek culture, and the kings of Bactria boasted of 
being descended from Alexander. To come down to a 
later time: we remember how, in 53 B. C., when the 
news of the defeat of Crassus arrived in the Parthian 
capital, the Court, it is said, was witnessing a perform- 
ance of the Bacchce of Euripides: and how, when 
the frenzied Agave appeared on the stage with the 
head of Crassus instead of that of her murdered son, 
Pentheus, the audience burst into wild applause. 
Tigranes, King of Armenia, encouraged Greek cult- 



48 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ure at his Court, and Greek dramas were performed 
at Tigranocerta. 1 

We have dwelt thus long on the attitude of the Mace- 
donian and foreign princes toward Greece, and es- 
pecially toward Athens, in the centuries before Christ, 
in order to make intelligible the peculiar position which 
Athens occupied in the intellectual life of the centuries 
after Christ. From the time of Alexander, as has been 
said, Athens held a place apart in the imaginations of 
men. Her brilliant political history, her achievements 
in literature and art, the culture and learning with 
which her name was associated, made of this city a 
hallowed spot, and few were found to deny her their 
homage. The charm which she thus, in the time of 
Alexander, began to exercise over men's minds, was not 
broken for over eight hundred years. 

But what, in the meantime, was the intellectual life of 
this period? It is significant of the new position which 
Greece occupied in the minds of men after the conquests 
of Alexander, that at this time the literature of the earlier 
days became a special object of study with men of learn- 
ing. The earlier literature, like the earlier history, of 
Greece seemed, by these conquests, to have gained some- 
thing of objectivity and perspective. But not alone in 
literature was the scientific spirit evident : the age was an 
age of learning and investigation in all departments. 

The first and greatest of the new centres of learning 
that sprang up in Macedonian times was Alexandria, 
founded by Alexander in 332 B. C. Hither, early in the 

1 For the Hellenism of the East, see E. R. Bevan, The House of 
Seleucus, especially chs. xi, xii, xiii, xxxii. 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 49 

third century, Ptolemy Soter, the first of the Ptolemaic 
kings, summoned from Greece the Peripatetic philoso- 
pher and statesman, Demetrius of Phalerum, and the 
two laid the foundations of the celebrated Alexandrian 
Library and Museum. The work was continued by 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, Ptolemy Soter's son. The 
Museum was an institution for the advancement of 
scientific learning; it was a sort of Round Table of 
erudite men. Its buildings were situated in the royal 
quarter of the city, adjoining the palace, and included 
cloisters, gardens, and a common hall for meals. Emi- 
nent literary and scientific men were invited to become 
members of the society, and annual stipends were al- 
lowed them by the king. Here they were to spend their 
lives in devotion to the Muses, and, at first at least, 
there was probably no provision made for teaching. 
The Museum resembled the philosophical schools at 
Athens in some respects, noticeably in being a "Temple 
of the Muses," a Movaelov, headed by a president, or 
"priest of the Museum," who, at Alexandria, was ap- 
pointed by the government. In close conjunction with 
the Museum was the Great Library, which in the mid- 
dle of the first century B. C. is said to have contained 
700,000 volumes. The librarians of this library — 
Zenodotus, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes of Byzantium, 
Aristarchus, and probably Callimachus, and Apollonius 
of Rhodes — are famous in the annals of classical 
scholarship. There was also a smaller library, which 
contained 42,800 volumes. In the course of time other 
foundations were established at Alexandria — as a 
Jewish college, a Christian college, and so on. 



50 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Alexandria was in Macedonian times the great centre 

— or, we might rather say, the one of two great centres 

— of scientific research. Classical learning, mathe- 
matics, astronomy, mechanics, medicine, anatomy, nat- < 
ural history, and whatever else of science there was — 
to say nothing of scholarly literature — all found a 
home in this city. The great rival of Alexandria was 
Pergamum, which, under the liberal policy of the 
Attalid dynasty, rose to eminence in literature, art, and 
science toward the close of the third century B. C. Here 
also was a library which, in the first century B. C, 
numbered 200,000 volumes, and here many distin- 
guished literary and scientific men made their home. 
Another city which received a library and museum 
after the pattern of those at Alexandria was Antioch, 
founded by Seleucus shortly after 300 B. C, and en- 
larged and adorned by Antiochus the Great, whos^ 
reign was from 224 to 181. There was a library at 
Antioch as early as the end of the third century B. C. 

of which Euphorion of Chalcis was librarian, and much 
later — in the middle of the first century — a museun* 
and library were established there by Antiochus XIII>* 
the last of the line of Seleucid kings. Other centres 
of literary, philosophical, or scientific activity were: 
Pella, the seat of the Macedonian Court; Cos; Rhodes, 
where were schools of rhetoric and philosophy ; 
Tarsus and Soli in Cilicia; and, at a later time, though 
founded in this period, Nicsea and Nicomedia in 
Bithynia. 1 

1 In general, see Sandys, Hist. Clas. Schol., i. pp. 105 ff. t 146 ff., 
and the literature there cited. 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 51 

And the intellectual centre of this Hellenistic world — 
Athens 1 During the third century the material interests 
of Greece suffered severely, first in consequence of the 
wars of the Successors and then owing to her internal 
politics in conjunction with the continued attempts of 
Macedonia to gain control of the land. In 279 the 
Celtic hordes from the north overran and devastated 
the northern part of the country. In 221 took place the 
battle of Sellasia, which closed the Cleomenic War, and 
from 219 to 217 was the Social War, waged between 
Philip V of Macedon and his Grecian allies on the one 
hand, and the iEtolian League on the other. The con- 
dition of affairs* at the close of that war is well described 
by Polybius ' : " Directly the Achseans had put an end to 
the war, they . . . departed to take up once more their 
regular ways and habits. Along with the Achaeans the 
other Peloponnesian communities also set to work to 
•epair the losses they had sustained; recommenced the 
cultivation of the land ; and re-established their national 
sacrifices, games, and other religious observances pe- 
culiar to their several states. For these things had all 
but sunk into oblivion in most of the states through the 
persistent continuance of the late wars. . . . The Athe- 
nians, on the contrary, had by this time freed them- 
selves from fear of Macedonia, and considered that they 
had now permanently secured their independence. 
They accordingly . . . took no part whatever in the 
politics of the rest of Greece. ,, This policy of abstention 
from Grecian politics afforded Athens the opportunity to 
devote herself more sedulously to her intellectual inter- 
■V. 106 (trans, by Shuckburgh). 



/ 



52 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ests, and throughout this period she displayed a grow- 
ing solicitude for education. The four schools of phi- 
losophy were her greatest educational asset, but rhet- 
oric, it would seem, was also taught. The heads of the 
philosophical schools were in few cases Athenians; they 
came from all parts of the Hellenistic world. Athens 
was in those days gradually becoming more and more 
a university town, such as we see her in the centuries 
after Christ. Foreign potentates, as we have already 
seen, vied with one another in endowing her with 
beautiful buildings, while students of all ages and all 
nationalities thronged her streets and drew inspiration 
from her associations. 

Toward the end of the third century the Romans for 
the first time entered into diplomatic relations with 
Greece and appeared with an armed force east of the 
Adriatic. In the year 229 the consuls Gnseus Fulvius 
Centumalus and Lucius Postumius Albinus crossed 
from Brundisium with an army and fleet, took Corcyra 
under their protection, and crushed the power of the 
Ulyrian pirates. In the following year the Romans 
were permitted by the Corinthians to take part in the 
Isthmian games. In 197 the Romans defeated Philip 
V of Macedon at Cynocephalae, and at the ensuing 
Isthmian games Flamininus proclaimed the independ- 
ence of all Greece. In 168 Lucius ^Emilius Paulus 
defeated Perseus, the son of Philip, at Pydna, and, 
after his victory, went on a tour through Greece, re- 
forming the governments of the cities, bestowing gifts 
upon the people, and admiring the artistic treasures of 
the land. 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 53 

We have, here recorded, three noteworthy occur- 
rences — not the military achievements, but the events 
that followed these. The Romans, coming into con- 
tact with Greece, acknowledged the same charm that 
the Macedonians and the other nations of the East had 
acknowledged before them. The privilege of taking 
part in the Greek games was prized, for it seemed to 
confer on those to whom it was granted a certain stand- 
ing in the civilized world ; to proclaim the independence 
of Greece was to do homage to the Greek name; while 
the tour of ^Emilius points to the awakening of an his- 
torical and antiquarian interest in the country. 

During the second century the material condition of 
Greece grew constantly worse. In the year 200, Athens 
was obliged to witness the destruction of her gymnasia 
and monuments outside the walls, and the devastation 
of her suburbs, by the army of Philip; and the many 
wars which followed these events were a severe strain 
on the material and physical resources of all Greece. 
The sufferings and losses of the country culminated 
in this century in the siege and destruction of Corinth 
in 146. 

Early in the first century B. C. Athens became in- 
volved in the First Mithridatic War, taking in that con- 
test the side of Mithridates. Sulla besieged the city, 
and, being without sufficient material for his machines 
of war, he cut down the beautiful trees of the Academy 
and the Lyceum; and, to obtain funds wherewith to 
continue the contest, he broke into the sanctuaries of 
Greece and carried off their treasures. On the 1st of 
March, 86, having made a breach in the city walls, he 



54 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

entered the town and massacred many of its defenders. 
"When they had thrown down the wall/' says Plu- 
tarch, 1 "and made all level betwixt the Piraic and 
Sacred Gate, about midnight Sulla entered the breach, 
with all the terrors of trumpets and cornets sounding, 
with the triumphant shout and cry of an army let loose 
to spoil and slaughter, and scouring through the streets 
with swords drawn. There was no numbering the slain ; 
the amount is to this day conjectured only from the 
space of ground overflowed with blood. For without 
mentioning the execution done in other quarters of the 
city, the blood that was shed about the market-place 
spread over the whole Ceramicus within the Double- 
Gate, and, according to most writers, passed through the 
gate and overflowed the suburb. Nor did the multi- 
tudes which fell thus exceed the number of those who, 
out of pity and love for their country, which they be- 
lieved was now finally to perish, slew themselves." 
Through the intercession of some Roman senators who 
were in the camp, and the prayer of two Grecian exiles, 
Sulla was at length induced to stay his hand and spare 
the majority of the citizens. The Peirseus was shortly 
after taken and almost totally destroyed by fire. 
^JAthens seems to have recovered from this blow, and 
in the next years her schools of philosophy were, appar- 
ently, in as flourishing a condition as ever. More and 
more now did the Romans resort to Grecian lands — 
travellers, who were interested to see the works of art 
and the places associated with the famous names of 
history and song; students and men of culture and 
1 Sulla, 14 (trans, by Dryden et al.). 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 55 

learning, who wished to live for a time in the intellect- 
ual atmosphere of the country and to converse with 
philosophers and orators; invalids and quasi-invalids, 
who, in the interests of health or of fashion, visited the 
cure-places of Greece. The sentiment with which men 
regarded Greece in those days is well brought out at the 
beginning of the Fifth Book of Cicero's De Finibus l : 
'[We arranged," says Cicero, "to take our afternoon 
walk in the Academy, chiefly because the spot was at 
that time of day entirely free from the crowd. So we 
met in Piso's house at the appointed hour. At first — 
for the six stades that lie outside the Double-Gate — 
we whiled away the time with general conversation ; 
but when we came to the walks of the Academy, so 
justly famed, we found the quiet which we had desired. 
Then said Piso: 'Is it due to a natural instinct or to 
some delusion, that when we look upon the places where, 
as we have been told, men worthy to be recorded in 
history have passed much of their time, we are more 
moved than when we happen to hear of the achievements 
or to read some writing of the men themselves ? I am 
so moved now. For I call to mind Plato, who, tradi- 
tion says, was the first to use this place habitually for 
debate ; and his little garden, yonder, not only brings 
him back to my memory, but seems to place the very man 
before my eyes. Here stood Speusippus, here Xenoc- 
rates, here Polemo, his pupil, whose very seat we see 
there before us ' " ; and much more to the same purpose. 
The two Grecian cities which most attracted the Ro- 
mans were Athens and Rhodes. The list of distinguished 

1 v. 1, 1. 



56 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Romans who sojourned or studied at one or both of 
these places is a long one — at Athens, Quintus Metellus 
Numidicus, Antonius, Cicero and his brother Quintus, 
Brutus, Horace, and many others; at Rhodes, such men 
as Marcus Antonius, Julius Csesar, Cicero, Brutus, 
and Cassius. The head of the Roman colony at 
Athens was Cicero's friend, Titus Pomponius Atticus. 
Athenian citizenship was eagerly sought, even in the 
time when it could be obtained for money, 1 and burial 
at Athens was considered an honor. When Servius Sul- 
picius begged for permission to bury his friend Mar- 
cellus within the city walls, the Areopagus refused to 
give its consent, and the most that could be obtained 
was permission to bury Marcellus in the grounds of the 
Academy. 

My bones and flesh the earth enfolds, a lovely child, 
My soul has upward flown into the sky; 
My name thou askest ? Theogeiton, Thymuch's son, 
Of Thebes; in famous Athens do I lie, 

runs an Athenian epitaph of a somewhat earlier date.' 
We can well understand how this city, with its tradi- 
tions and associations, its art treasures, its wealth of 
learned and cultured men, the free and democratic 
spirit of its people, its quiet, academic life, was destined 
to be, in the years to come, the university seat of the 
ancient world. 

But dark days were to intervene before that time and 
were even now closing in. The Civil Wars began in 

1 Even as late as the third century A. D., Himerius sought 
Athenian citizenship for his son (Himer., ec, vii). 
' Kaibel, Ep. Gr. t 90. 



THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD 57 

49 B. C, and they lasted till 31. Many of the battles of 
these wars were fought out on Grecian soil, and, during 
the course of the wars, constant requisitions were made 
on the Greeks for money, troops, and supplies. At the 
end of the period Athens was in an exhausted condition, 
and her fortunes were at their lowest ebb. 

We are now ready, after remarking briefly in the fol- 
lowing chapter on the connection of the state and edu- 
cation in the early history of Greece, to trace, in the 
succeeding chapters, the regeneration of Greece, which 
took place in the first two or three centuries after Christ. 



CHAPTER IV 
EDUCATION AND THE STATE 

We have, in the chapters immediately before us, to 
trace the steps by which university education became 
established officially in the Greek world, and to follow 
its vicissitudes to the time when all pagan teaching in 
the world at large was brought to an end by the rescript 
issued by the Emperor Justinian, closing the Neo- 
Platonic school of philosophy at Athens, in 529 A. D. 
In the succeeding chapters we shall endeavor to gain a 
closer acquaintance with the inner life of the univer- 
sities, with the teachers and students, their methods, 
their manners, and their work. But before we enter 
upon the task of tracing the outer history of the univer- 
sities and observing its connection with the political and 
religious history of the times, it will be well to consider 
briefly the relation of the state to education among the 
Greeks in the preceding centuries. 

The attitude of the state toward education at Athens 
in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. was one of non- 
interference. Schools were private institutions, and in- 
struction was paid for by the individual. Theorists and 
reasoners, like Plato and Aristotle, held that the pros- 
perity of the state was the chief end of education, and 
something of the feeling which led to this attitude seems 
to have been an inborn characteristic of the Greek mind 

in general, Ionic as well as Doric, though expressing it- 

58 



EDUCATION AND THE STATE 59 

self in the one case in less rigid form than in the other. 
"The legislator," says iEschines, in speaking of the 
legislation which went under the name of the Solonian 
and Draconian, 1 "thought that the child who was well 
brought up would, when he had become a man, make a 
useful citizen"; where, however, the word well (/ca\<w9) 
has a moral rather than an intellectual signification. 
We should have, then, the apparently anomalous con- 
dition of affairs, wherein the object of education is con- 
sidered to be the perfect development of the individual, 
mentally, morally, and physically, for the service of the 
state, but yet the state fails to take cognizance of the 
methods by which such development is attained. 

There is, however, evidence that this neglect of educa- 
tion by the state was not absolute at Athens. " Now," 
thus Plato represents the laws as saying to Socrates in 
the Crito, 2 "the laws which apply to the rearing and 
education of children — the laws under which you re- 
ceived your own education — do you find fault with 
them ? Did not those of us who were set in charge of 
these matters order well when we enjoined it upon your 
father that he should educate you in music and gym- 
nastic?" Just how much we are to understand by 
these words, it is difficult to say. It is possible that the 
"laws" in question were those simply of custom. 
Plato's words are supplemented by the statement of 
Vitruvius and others 3 that at Athens the boy who had 

1 Contra Timarch., 11. 2 50 D. 

3 Vitruv., vi. 3, translating from Alexis (nisi eos qui liberos 
artibus erudissent); Plut., Solon, 22 (nv 8i8a^dfi€Pov t^w)', and 
Galen (Protrep., 8, vol. i. p. 15); cf. Lib., ep., 137. r^xvai in- 
cluded the liberal arts as well as trades. 



60 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

not been provided with a trade or a profession by his 
father was relieved by law from the obligation of sup- 
porting his father when the latter grew old. These 
various statements possibly all refer to the same thing. 
The fact, however, that it is stated that, if the father 
did not provide his son with a training he could not 
later demand support from the latter, seems to show 
that there was no further penalty attached for non- 
compliance with the "law." However this may be, 
some sort of education the father was apparently re- 
quired to give his son. Corroboration of the sense of 
Plato's words has been found ■ in the probable fact 
that guardians were obliged to defray the cost of their 
wards' education, and is also contained in the chance 
statement of ^Eschines that Athenians were under 
compulsion in the matter of sending their children to 
school. 1 

iEschines further furnishes us 3 with certain school 
regulations affecting the morals of pupils, which pur- 
port to go back to Solon or even to an earlier time. 
Thus, teachers and athletic instructors were forbidden 
to open their schools and palaestrae before sunrise or to 
keep them open after sunset; no adult person other than 
the teacher's son, brother, or son-in-law, was allowed, 
on pain of death, to enter the school-room while the 
pupils were within. Specific directions are also given 

1 Girard, L'Ed. athen., p. 33. 

8 Contra Timarch., 9: ££ &vdyicr)s. Cf. Isoc, Areop., 37, 45. 

3 Contra Timarch., 7-12. We must here distinguish between 
what iEschines says was the law and that which purports to be 
the law itself, given in the text. The former is probably true, 
but the latter can hardly be genuine. 



EDUCATION AND THE STATE 61 

as to the age at which free-born youths were to attend 
school, the size of the classes, etc. Furthermore, who- 
ever undertook to defray the cost of a boy's chorus must 
be over forty years of age. This last provision is inter- 
esting, inasmuch as we find similar provisions as to the 
age of certain officers of instruction in operation in the 
city of Teos in Asia Minor, 1 and also recommended by 
Plato in the Laws. 2 We see, however, that the public 
establishment and support of schools were not involved 
in these regulations, and that nothing is said about 
courses of study, payment of teachers, and the like; it is 
simply a question of the right management of private 
institutions, and the moral education and protection of 
the child is the acknowledged cause of the legislation 
(irepl tt)? cr<o<f)pocrvv7)<; f 7; irepl tt)? eu/eocr/ua?, 8). Some, 
if not all, of these laws later fell into disuse, for we find 
Socrates mingling freely with the young men in the 
palsestrse, and Theophrastus represents it as a charac- 
teristic of the Bore 3 that he drops into the athletic 
grounds and the schools, and, by talking with the 
wrestling-masters and the teachers, interrupts the prog- 
ress of the lessons. 

If we omit to dwell on the ephebic institution, which, 
as has been seen in a previous chapter, was, in the 
fourth century B. C, wholly military in character, but 
possibly later, when intellectual studies became a part 
of its course of training, was the cause of some official 

1 Dittenberger, Syl. Inscr. Grcec, ii. 523 a. 

8 764 E. 

3 The character of the \d\ot (Charac, 7). For a later time, 
compare the action of Hippodromus, dropping into Megistias's 
school (Philos., 618); c/. also Lib., ii. 233, 2. 



62 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

recognition being given to the philosophers and rhet- 
oricians, we have still, in speaking of Athens, to men- 
tion a few attempts at forcible interference on the part 
of the government in the freedom of instruction. /One 
of these was when, at the time of the Thirty Tyrants, a 
decree was passed forbidding rhetoric and "philosophy 
to be taught at Athens. 1 Another was when, shortly 
after the advent of Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens and 
the withdrawal of Demetrius the Phalerean, about 307 
B. C, a certain Sophocles, son of Amphicleides of 
Sunium, secured the passage of a law to the effect that 
no one should open or conduct a school of philosophy 
in the city without the consent of the Senate and people. 2 
In the first case the action was taken at the instigation 
of Critias, and was directed against Socrates, with whom 
Critias was on terms of enmity. In the second case 
the monarchically disposed school of the Peripatetics, 
which had been supported by, and had supported, the 
outgoing, government, was the object of attack. There 
followed, on the second occasion, a general exodus of 
philosophers and students, but these all returned the 
next year, when Sophocles was convicted under the 
law against illegal procedure and his measure repealed. 
These proceedings, however, being due to political or 
private animosity, cannot in any way be said to have 
represented a policy, and they had not so much signifi- 
cance even as had the banishment of Damon, Anaxag- 
oras, and Protagoras, the execution of Socrates, or the 

1 Xen., Mem., i. 2, 31. 

2 Diog. Laert., v. 38: (txoXtJs a<f>r}ye?<rdai • Poll., Onom., ix. 42: 
diarpiprjv KaraffKevdaaadat, Bee also Alexis in Athen., xiii. 92, p. 
610. 



EDUCATION AND THE STATE 63 

cumulation of honors and rewards on special philoso- 
phers and sophists by individual princes. 

Of more importance, and of significance as pointing 
to the renewed pre-eminence of the Court of the Areo- 
pagus in local affairs relating to the habits and educa- 
tion of the people in the Macedonian, and especially in 
the Roman, period, are jwo o ccurrences, of which we 
have information, ir\ the one case from Diogenes Laer- 
tius, and in the other from Plutarch. Cleanthes, 1 a 
poor student from Assos, who was studying at Athens 
under Zeno, having, in order to be able to study by day, 
to work all night at drawing water in gardens, was 
voted by the Areopagus the sum of ten mina? (about 
$180) for his support; "but," says Diogenes, "Zeno 
forbade him to accept them." Cicero (this is the other 
occurrence 2 ) induced, on a certain occasion, the Areo- 
pagus, to request, by public decree, the Peripatetic 
philosopher Cratippus to stay at Athens, for the in- 
struction of their youth and the honor of their city. 

So much for Athens ; of the attitude of the government 
toward education outside Athens, we are able to glean 
some information in connection with a few places. 
Not to dwell on the constitutions of Sparta and Crete, 
which were almost wholly military in character, Cha- 
rondas, the legislator of Catana in Sicily, introduced, we 
are told, into his constitution, a piece of legislation 
which had been neglected by all previous legislators: 
he required that the sons of all citizens should be taught 

1 Diog. Laert., vii. 168, 169. Cleanthes seems also to have 
tended the ovens in a bakery. 

2 Plut., Cic., 24. 



64 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

to read and write at the public expense. The truth of 
this statement, which is found (with the substitution of 
Thurii for Catana) in Diodorus Siculus, 1 has been 
doubted, but, it would seem, without sufficient reason. 3 
An interesting inscription from Teos in Asia Minor, 
dating probably from the third century B. C, gives a 
curious bit of information with regard to educational 
affairs in that city. 3 A certain Teian, named Poly- 
throus, son of Onesimus, had presented to his fellow- 
citizens the sum of 34,000 drachmae (about $6,120) to 
defray the cost of instructing, in letters, all the free-born 
children of both sexes, and, in music and certain mili- 
tary exercises, all the free-born male youth. We are in- 
terested to learn from this inscription, in view of what 
has been said in a previous chapter with regard to 
graded instruction, that the instruction at Teos was 
divided into three apparently clearly distinguished 
grades. 4 But what we are specially concerned to notice 
here is that the instruction there provided was official in 
character. The teachers were to be appointed by the 
state, and they were to receive their pay from the state, 
and this system applied to all three grades. Other in- 

*xii. 12 

* E. g., by Grafenhan, Gesch. d. klass. Phil, i. p. 67. See 
Girard, L'Ed. athen., p. 20. The date of Charondas was prob- 
ably the sixth century B. C. The confusion of Thurii and Catana 
in the account of Diodorus may be due to the fact that Thurii 
took much of its legislation from the Chalcidian colonies in 
Sicily and Italy. See, on Charondas, Niese in Pauly's Real- 
Encyc. 

3 Dittenberger, Syl. Inscr. Grose, ii. 523 a. 

4 The grades in the musical and military instruction, however, 
seem to have been only a year apart, and it is not clear whether 
the grades in the literary instruction coincided with these. 



EDUCATION AND THE STATE 65 

scriptions from Teos tend to confirm the fact that edu- 
cation there was regularly public. 1 

A certain Delphian inscription, belonging apparently 
to the second century B. C., 2 informs us that the people 
of Delphi had sent an embassy to Attalus II, King of 
Pergamum, "on the subject of the education of their 
children." Attalus had replied to the embassy by send- 
ing to the Delphians 18,000 Alexandrian drachmae, the 
interest of which sum it was now determined should be 
used to pay the salaries of teachers. 
i A similar case to that last cited, showing us that there 
was a system of public education in Rhodes in the mid- 
dle of the second century B. C, is mentioned by Po- 
lybius. 3 "They [the Rhodians]," says Polybius, "had 
received 280,000 medimni of corn from Eumenes [the 
King of Pergamum], that its value might be invested, 
and the interest devoted to pay the fees of the tutors 
and school-masters of their sons." Polybius blames the 
Rhodians for accepting the gift, saying that they should 
have guarded their dignity more jealously. 

This, then, is about the extent of our information 
with regard to the connection of the state and education 
in pre-Christian times. 4 We gather therefrom that out- 

1 See Girard, L'Ed. athen., pp. 21, 22. 

2 Haussoulier in Bid. de correspond, hellen., v. pp. 157-178. 
3 xxxi. 25 (trans, by Shuckburgh). 

* We are told by Plutarch (Themis., 10) that when, at the 
time of the second Persian invasion, the Athenians, on the advice 
of Themistocles, sent their wives and children to Troezen, the 
people of that city passed a resolution to the effect that the 
fugitives should be supported by the state, and the Athenian 
children allowed to continue their studies in the schools of 
Troezen at the public expense. This statement hardly seems 
to point to state education at Troezen- 



66 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

side Athens there was, in some places, a certain degree 
of state education, at least in the Macedonian period, 
and probably also much earlier. At Athens there 
existed at an early time certain laws or customs enjoin- 
ing in a general way the, training of the Athenian youth, 
and certain other laws, more definite, relative to the 
conditions under which inst ruction in the schools should 
be given. There does not seem, however, so far as we can 
make out from the evidence at hand, to have been at the 
same early time at Athens any state-regulated system of 
instruction, or any teachers appointed and salaried by 
the state. After tin* time of Alexander the tendency may 
have been, in many or most cities of the Greek world, 
v"for the government to interest itself more and more in 
^S*t\\Q, primary education of its citizens, and possibly this 
was the case also at Athens. In this connection, we may 
notice that the one point on which Polybius, doubtless 
comparing the Roman state of affairs with the Greek, 
found fault with Roman institutions on the ground of 
negligence, was the education of their youth; he charged 
the Romans with having no system of education, estab- 
lished by law and the same for all. 1 At Athens the 
Areopagus and the chief civil functionary, the crrpaTrjyb^ 
eVl rh 6'7r\a, as well as others of the crrpar7jyo{ y appar- 
ently asserted, in the Macedonian and early Roman peri- 
ods, a certain amount of authority even over the higher 
education by virtue of their connection with the state 
institution of the ephebi. The establishment, however, 
of the higher education of the day on an official basis, 

1 Cic, Dc repub., iv. 3. 



EDUCATION AND THE STATE 67 

though, as we see, all things were tending toward it, was 
left to the personal initiative of the Roman emperors 
of the second century A. D. 1 

'For the connection of the state and education among the 
Greeks, see, in general, Girard, UfBd. athen., pp. 1-61, and 
Grasberger, Erzieh. u. Unterr. im klass. Alterth., iii. pp. 554-594. 



CHAPTER V 

ESTABLISHMENT OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN 
GRECIAN LANDS. 

During the years that elapsed from the estab- 
lishment of the Empire under Augustus to the last 
quarter of the first century of our era we have com- 
paratively little direct information with regard to the 
intellectual condition of Greece. 1 The country was at 
that time but slowly recovering from the distress and 
exhaustion occasioned by the Civil Wars, and was like- 
wise for part of the period suffering from the neglect 
of the reigning emperors. Diminution of population, 
impoverishment of the people and land, paralysis of 
trade and commerce were some of the misfortunes which 
the Civil Wars, often fought out on Grecian soil, brought 
in their immediate train. Already, as we have seen, 
at the time of the First Mithridatic War, when Sulla 
invested Athens and the Peirseus, and, for want of ma- 
terial for his machines of war, cut down the beautiful 

1 From the time of Tiberius to the time of Vespasian there 
was a singular dearth of Greek writers, and the literature of the 
preceding period was an expatriated literature. Diodorus 
Siculus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Strabo all lived and 
wrote outside Greece. In the last quarter of the century we 
have, as important sources of information on Greece, Plutarch 
and Dio Chrysostom. See, in general, on the condition of the 
country in this century, Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman 
Empire (trans.), i. ch. vii.; Hertzberg, Gesch. Griech., i. ch. v.; ii. 
chs. i. and ii.; Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway (The 
Silver Age of the Greek World), ch. xii. 

68 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 69 

trees of the Academy and the Lyceum, and then, enter- 
ing the city, caused the streets of Athens to flow with 
blood, the people had suffered terribly, but from that 
blow they seem to have recovered quickly, and in the 
following years Athens was the seat of a large colony 
of Roman youths and men, eager to make acquaint- 
ance at first hand with the culture and education of 
Greece. The Civil Wars, however, once more laid 
waste the land and impoverished the people, and this 
time the recovery was less quick than before. "Empty 
Athens" (yacuas . . . Athenas), says Horace, 1 contrast- 
ing the rural quiet of the city by the Ilissus with the 
noise and bustle of Rome. The picture drawn by 
Strabo and Dio Chrysostom, of the devastated con- 
dition of Greece in the first century of our era; of 
once thriving cities lying in ruins or reduced to villages; 
of depopulated towns, where in the gymnasia the 
statues of the gods stand half hidden by the crops, 
and flocks of sheep graze in the market-places and 
about the council-halls; of large tracts of land lying 
untilled for want of hands, is indeed a mournful one. 
Asia Minor and the islands of the JEge&n suffered less 
in these wars than the mainland of Greece, and in their 
descriptions of this part of the world Dio and Strabo 
painted in colors correspondingly brighter. 

\ Still, we know that during these years the educa- 
tional institutions of Greece were gradually crystallizing 
into the form which we find they have taken when the 
veil is at last lifted toward the end of the first century 
A. D. We know that, even in those days, intellectual 

1 Ep. f ii. 2, 81. 



70 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

life did not stagnate. There were Greek philosophers 
and other men of letters in the cities of Europe and 
Asia, and they were important personages in the com- 
munities in which they moved. Greece was still to 
many Romans the land of pious pilgrimage, and Greek 
men of learning were welcomed in the capital of the 
West. Probably, however, Grecian lands were at this 
time no longer holding their own in the struggle for in- 
tellectual supremacy, and Athens perhaps was even 
falling behind other Grecian cities. Strabo could say in 
the reign of Tiberius that Marseilles, with her sophists 
and philosophers, was drawing the noblest Roman 
youths thither and away from Athens, 1 and that Tarsus 
even surpassed Athens as a university centre. "Such 
an enthusiasm," he says, speaking of Tarsus, 2 " for phi- 
losophy and all the other parts of a liberal education, 
has been developed in the people of this city, that they 
have surpassed Athens and Alexandria and all other 
places one might mention as seats of learning and phil- 
osophical study. . . . They have schools for all 
branches of literary culture.' ' He notes, however, that 
at Tarsus, which differed in this respect from most 
other seats of learning, the students were nearly all 
natives, and that very few strangers came to reside there. 
In the last half of the first century, however, we al- 
ready meet premonitory symptoms that Greece is awak- 
ening from her long slumber. Oratory, which, after 
the fall of Greek liberty, retired into private life and 
became a thing of the schools, begins, under the changed 

Mv. p. 181. 

s xiv. p. 673 (trans, by E. R. Bevan). 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 71 

conditions which now prevail, to come once more into 
closer relation to life, and the teachers of oratory, the 
sophists, gain a new distinction. 

As this is the first time, in the course of our survey, 
that we have had occasion to speak of these later soph- 
ists, it will be well if we stop here for a moment to ren- 
der some account of these men and to trace, as accu- 
rately as may be, their history and lineage. We are 
familiar with the so-called sophists of the fifth and 
fourth centuries B. C. — those men who travelled from 
place to place, instructing the Greek youth in the higher 
learning of the day and training them for active service 
in the state and for the duties and successes of private 
life. These men, though differing to some extent in what 
they taught and including in their range of studies a 
great variety of subjects, probably without exception laid 
special stress on rhetoric and the art of public speaking. 
The art of managing words skilfully and effectively was 
almost a necessity in the public and private life of the 
Athenians of that day, it appealed to the delicate artistic 
sense of the Greeks, and it was justified to those who 
were the teachers of wisdom by its importance in the 
transmission of knowledge itself. Isocrates, in the 
fourth century, was the first to give to the epideictic 
eloquence an artistic treatment, and in his hands this 
department of oratory gained a new meaning and a 
new force; he raised the study of rhetoric and oratory 
to an independent position in the educational curriculum 
of the Greek youth. With the loss of Greek indepen- 
dence, the field for an inspired national oratory — an 
oratory such as that of Demosthenes and Hypereides — 



72 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

was cut off, and the art of public speaking retreated, as 
has been said, into the schools. Here it led a forced 
and artificial existence, and was dissected and worked 
over like a body from which the spirit has flown. It 
still appeared, on occasion, in public, in the presence of 
selected audiences, before the magistrates, in assem- 
blies, in the courts, and on embassies, but the orators 
at such times were generally professional rhetoricians 
and teachers of eloquence, who were interested first of 
all in the display of their own art. When Alexander 
conquered the East and opened the way to the extension 
of the Greek civilization and language in that quarter 
of the world, an enlargement of the field for the practice 
of oratory no doubt gradually took place in the free 
communities of the East, and men there were who re- 
ceived their education, in whole or in part, at the rhet- 
oricians' hands and employed it in the service of the 
commonwealths. Oratory had, however, at that time, 
to contend with the rival claims of philosophy, and it 
was never, in the last three centuries before Christ, 
received so enthusiastically and unreservedly by the 
majority of the population as was the case at a later 
time; it remained distinctively a school oratory, quite 
different from the inspired oratory of an earlier period, 
and the general tendency seems to have been for it 
to separate itself more and more from the life of the 
people, 1 although it never renounced the claim to be 

1 This is clear from many passages in the De rhetorica of the 
Epicurean philosopher Philodemus (who, however, we must bear 
in mind, wrote from a partisan point of view); e. g., i. p. 41, 8 
(ed. Sudh.): fxedoSmdv re ycLp ovdtv ol crcxpurral irapabiSbaaiv iv reus 
/xeKirais irpbs /iddrj<TLv ttjs iv tois a\i]dii>ois dywaiv 8vvdp.€ios. Cf. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 73 

the chief preparation for life. A certain popular 
oratory, it would seem, still lingered about the courts, 1 
and it is a question to what extent the numerous 
rhetors referred to by Strabo in his Geography 2 as being 
active in the cities of Asia Minor, were educated in the 
schools of sophistry. 3 Although Asia Minor and some 
islands of the iEgean, such as Rhodes and Lesbos, seem 



Epicurea (Usener), p. 113, 18. That the tendency in the 
schools at this time was to run to scholasticism, or at least to 
formalism, is clear from the text-books that were written on the 
various branches of rhetoric; e. g., Philod., ii. p. 110, 9: rexvoXoyiai 
<ro<pL<TTLKal' i. p. 195, 22: r^xvat (of gesticulation and the manage- 
ment of the voice); i. p. 138, 17: irapaddaeis (dewprjfxdrwv ttoXitikQv). 
A good picture of the sophist as he was in the first century B. C. 
is gained from the scattered notices in the pages of Philodemus. 
The sophist of this period dealt with the three kinds of speeches, 
the judicial, the deliberative, and the epideictic (i. p. 212, 21, 25), 
and claimed that his art was the mother of all other arts and 
sciences (i. p. 223, 13). Advocates and popular speakers sent 
their sons to him to be educated (i. p. 38, 5). He had set rules 
for the treatment of the parts of the speech, such as the in- 
troduction, the narrative, etc., which, however, not all men 
followed (i. p. 201, 12). He gave precepts for the cultivation of 
style and the improvement of the memory (i. p. 79, 23). He 
had rules for the management of the voice and the body (i. p. 
193, 16). He treated of metaphors (i. p. 170, 24), of enthymemes 
(i. p. 78, 16), of allegories (i. p. 181, 25), and of hyperbata (i. p. 
160, 15). He held 'displays' (iiridel&is), and gave examples of 
judicial, deliberative, and ambassadorial speeches (i. p. 134, 2); 
and he also dealt with themes called denied (i. p. 206, 22). The 
sophist of this period no longer, apparently, professed to in- 
struct young men in all and every branch of practical learning; 
he was distinctively the teacher of (rhetorical) oratory. See 
Brandstatter, Leipz. Stud., 15, p. 226. 

1 See p. 87, n. 3. 

8 E. g., xiii. pp. 614, 617, 627. 

8 Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De comp. verb., 25, p. 206; cf. De 
or. ant., 1) says that some orators of his time (presumably the 
so-called Asiatic, or Asianic, orators) lacked a general education 
as well as systematic rhetorical training. 



74 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

to have been the special fields in which these schools 
throve, there was a school at Athens in the first century 
B. C., 1 and we are probably justified in believing that 
rhetoric was taught at Athens from the time of Isocrates 
down. 

But although the general tendency of oratorical in- 
struction in the centuries before Christ was such as we 
have described, another tendency there was of dia- 
metrically opposite character at work during the same 
period — a tendency which was destined to lead in later 
times to important results. We are told that toward the 
end of the fourth century or the beginning of the third 
century B. C. the study of oratory underwent a change. 
Before that time those who were known as sophists had 
been accustomed to deal with subjects that allowed of 
a more or less eulogistic treatment, or to discuss such 
half-philosophical questions as, What is the nature of 
virtue? What is the nature of the gods and the uni- 
verse? but now supposititious cases drawn from the 
experience of life, especially cases resembling those 
which occurred in the law courts and the assemblies, 
began to be used. 2 The sophistical oratory was pri- 
marily epideictic, and the introduction into the schools 

1 See Blass, Griech. Bered., p. 95. 

3 According to Quintilian, it was about the time of Demetrius 
of Phalerum that fictitious cases in imitation of pleadings in the 
forum and in public councils were introduced into the practice 
of the sophistical schools (Inst, or., ii. 4, 41, 42; c/. ii. 10). Philo- 
stratus (481) and Photius (Bibl., cod. 61) assign the new tendency 
to iEschines. Philodemus (i. 122, 25-136, 20) says that the imita- 
tion court and assembly speeches as practised in the schools 
formed no real and natural part of the sophist's profession. So, 
also, the rhetorician, Menander (Speng., Eh. Gr., iii. p. 331; see 
p. 224, n. 4). 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 75 

of a subject-matter that did not properly belong to them 
was a movement, apparently, in the way of popular- 
izing such oratory — it was, we should say, a recognition 
of the claims of daily life. The epideictic, or display, 
oratory may thus be conceived to have gained a wider 
significance; the new matter was given an epideictic, or 
sophistical, treatment; ' displays' of judicial and de- 
liberative themes, as of the properly epideictic speeches, 
were held. It was under such conditions as these that 
on the one hand the sophistical training could at that 
time claim to be a preparation for active life and that 
many could send their sons to the schools of sophistry 
in this belief, while on the other hand some could 
deny to this training all right to be considered prepara- 
tory to life. 1 For the time the sophistical tendency seems 
to have prevailed, but in later centuries — in the cen- 
turies after Christ — as we shall see, a saner taste came 
in, and then the judicial and deliberative oratory 
formed an essential part of the sophistical training. 

The name Sophist, as applied to a professional 
teacher, either of learning in general or specifically of 
oratory, never went out of existence from the time it was 
so first used, 2 and the sophists of the second and follow- 

1 We must remember, however, that some part of this differ- 
ence of opinion is to be accounted for by the rivalry that existed 
between philosophy and rhetoric, each claiming to furnish the 
only proper training for the future citizen. 

' Brandstatter, Leipz. Stud., 15, pp. 258, 259; Rohde, Gr. Rom., 
p. 315, n. 2. The word Sophist was originally used of any man 
who had superior wisdom or ability in a single line, and it natu- 
rally came to be applied in the fifth century B. C. to those men 
who claimed to have a more or less general acquaintance with 
many subjects. This change of application was a step in the 
direction of making the term technical. The first man, so far as 



76 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ing centuries A. D., though in their profession and 
many of their characteristics different from the sophists 
of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C, were historically 
the direct lineal descendants of these men. 1 The later 
sophists, however, were not, like the earlier sophists, 
teachers of all learning with a leaning toward oratory, 
but they were teachers and expounders of the art of 
public speaking exclusively. 

Toward the end of the first century of our era the 
school oratory of which we have spoken began once 
more to come into closer relation to life. One sign of this 
tendency was its leaning toward the judicial and deliber- 
ative oratory. 2 The oratory of the imperial age first pre- 

can be determined, to use the word in its purely technical sense 
of an epideictic orator and teacher of (epideictic) oratory Brand- 
statter (pp. 228, 258) makes out to have been Epicurus. 
""* The exact historical connection of the imperial sophistry has 
been matter of controversy. The view of Rohde (Gr. Rom., p. 
312, n. 1, and in Rhein. Mus., 41, pp. 170-190) is that it was a 
direct outgrowth of the so-called earlier Asiatic oratory. This 
view is supported by Brandstatter, Leipz. Stud., 15, pp. 260 ff. 
The Asiatic oratory, however, must have become in the hands of 
the sophists distinctly modified by the Atticistic tendency in- 
augurated, or strongly promoted, in the Augustan age by Dio- 
nysius of Halicarnassus and Caecilius {Rhein. Mus., 41, p. 172). 
The sophists of the time of Philodemus are said to have used 
solecisms and barbarisms (Philod., i. p. 154, 4; cf. p. 159, 20), 
while Polemo purged oratory of the Asiatic word-jugglery (Pro- 
cop., ep., 116, but see Schmid, Gr. Renais., p. 43, n. 76; see also 
the following note). Another view is that of Kaibel (Hermes, 
20, pp. 497-513), who connects the later sophistry with the teach- 
ing of the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. and with the Atticistic 
tendency of Dionysius and Caecilius. Wilamowitz-Mollendorff 
(Hermes, 35, pp. 1-52) emphasizes the historical connection of 
the earlier and the later sophists. 
f~ 'See Philos., 511, 518, 595, 600, 626, 628. The general in- 
terest taken by the sophists of the second and third centuries 
A. D. in municipal politics is suggestive of the fact that the 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 77 

sents itself to our view, not at Athens, but in Asia Minor; 
Nicetes, its first great light, was a native of Smyrna, and 
almost all the other important sophists of the second 
century came from the Greek cities of Asia. 1 Now it 
was precisely in these cities that the Romans, when they 
came into contact with the Greeks, met the most active 
and vigorous municipal life. It was the policy of the 
Romans not to interfere in the internal politics of the 
conquered states further than was necessary to uphold 
the imperial dignity and to preserve order in the cities. 
Thus, in the Greek communities of Asia Minor, the old 
forms of democratic polity were for the most part still 
in existence in the first century of the Christian era; 
assemblies and courts met as of yore, and magistrates, 
tlected by the people, governed under the old names. 

oratory which they taugLt was coming nearer to the life of the 
people. Many of these men held important positions in the cities; 
thus, Lollianus was oTpar^ds iirl twv 8tt\wv at Athens (Philos., 
526), as were also Theodotus (ib., 566) and Apollonius (ib. t 600); 
Apollonius was also archon eponymus. Note also the public 
activity of Polemo at Smyrna (ib., 531, 532). These examples 
might be many times multiplied (see p. 164). Secondly, sophistry, 
we are told, underwent a wonderful expansion at the hands of 
Nicetes (ib., 511). This statement seems to point to the begin- 
ning of a new era for the subject. Also, the false rhetoric of the 
earlier oratory was giving way to a saner style (see the preceding 
note, and the following passages: Philos., 588, 589, 598, 613, 616; 
Hippodromus wished to find somebody educated in the Asiatic 
style of oratory: ib., 618, 619; for a sample of the inflated style 
of the sophists of an age not long preceding that of Lucian, see 
Lucian's Lexiphanes; cf. ib., Rhet. prcec, 17). It did not always 
happen, however, that the sophist was at home in the court or 
assembly room (Philos., 614; Lib., ep., 1038; Eumen., Pro rest, 
scol., 2; cf. Seneca, Contr., iii. prcef., 16-18). 

1 Philos., 511, and under the various biographies. Cf. Sopater, 
Proleg. in Aristeid., iii. p. 737, and Himer., or., xi. 2. Ephesus was 
a literary centre in the time of Domitian (Philos., 339). 



78 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The country was prosperous and at peace, and enjoyed 
a large measure of happiness. Notwithstanding the 
levelling tendency of the Roman government in imperial 
times, and the increasing necessity (caused by the in- 
ability of the municipal authorities to cope with the 
question of taxation, the burden of which was growing 
heavier and heavier every year) for interference on the 
part of the central government in the internal affairs of 
the cities, much of the old feeling of political indepen- 
dence and national patriotism must still have existed in 
these communities at that time. Under these circum- 
stances, it was found, in a greater degree than before, 
that the widest field for public activity was opened to 
those who possessed an oratorical training. 1 It needed, 

1 That the sophistical training was a preparation for active 
political and professional life is clear from many passages. Sena- 
tors, advocates, and judges, especially, came from the sophist's 
school (Lib., i. 334, 5 ff.) ii. 279, 4; 284, 3; 286, 13; 295, 5; iii. 
229, 2; ep., 973, 1107); officials of the imperial government (ib. t 
i. 202, 8; 334, 10; iii. 435, 12; ep., 80, 140, 780, 781, 1143); 
even emperors (ib., iii. 283, 10); and Christians, as well as pagans 
(Choric, p. 109). The ability to speak was the high-road to 
official positions (Lib., ep., 248: ko\ <nJ rot rb fy>x«" *X et * **"& ToC 
dvvaadai Xi^/ei?). Julian tried to fill the imperial positions in the 
provinces with educated men (Himer., or., v. 10). The sophist 
beheld young men issuing from his school into the walks of life 
(Lib., iii. 199, 5: ivl piuv dSots). The speaker trained in the 
sophist's school spoke in the assemblies on war and peace {ib., 
iii. 198, 17). The sophistical education is called the most useful 
of all accomplishments (ib., i. 334, 4). The two requirements 
for a senator were financial means and the ability to speak on 
the subjects of the day (ib., iii. 447, 17). The calling of the 
sophist was to turn out public speakers (ib., i. 617, 17; ep., 780). 
Influential positions were obtained through rhetoric (ib., ep., 
823; cf. 1454). Perhaps the clearest description of the sophist's 
profession is in Themistius, 339 b, c: el fiev irpbs dpytpiov /3\6r«« 
. . . $i)Teiv iicelvovs roi/s \6yovs o? xP^l xaT ^ co1 /3Xa0"riJ<rot><rtj'. eo-rt 8e 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 79 

however, the favor and encouragement of the ruling 
power to give to the study of oratory that impulse that 
should bring it once more into prominence. These, in 
the last half of the first century A. D., were not long 
lacking. The emperors, as the century wore on, began 
to respond to the charm which Greece never for long 
failed to exert over those who came within the circle of 
her influence. 1 

xo\i> rb a-rripp-a tovto Kal iv SiKaffrrj plots Kal iv iKKXrjalats, teal fxd\i<TTa 
eidaXet irepl tt)v dyopdv Kal rb pypa. p.Tjinjo'aip.i 5' &v col Kal iyu) rods 
iv66.be &<p6ovov airrb KeKTTjp.e'vovs- ols el rrpoclots re Kal depairetioLS, rayjb 
oov fxeydXrjv ttjv y\&TTav Kal irepm^v dwobel^ovct. . . . otfrus Tjpuy 
61 0o<pio-Tal 8e£iol elaiv. Philostratus in his Lives rarely mentions 
pupils other than sophists, but Chrestus turned out, besides 
other distinguished men, several famous political orators (591). 
Oratory, according to Libanius, was an ornament in all walks of 
life (ep., 140: iravraxov be otov cavrip Kal rb "Xiyeiv irpocfjKeiv. ovSds 
yap /Sfos virb pTjropiKijs alcx^verai). Rhetoric was the savior and 
support of municipal life (Procop., ep., 80: ttjv 'EWdba prjTopiKijv, 
i<f> f)s e<TT7)Kao-iv al irbXeis). Compare Lib., i. 102, 11: &v (public 
speakers) olxop-ivuv ifyp.luvrai p.ev (3ov\al Kal 8ioiKr)ceis TrbXeiov, 
ifa/xliovTai be dUai, \6ycov t$ biKai<p cvp.p.dx^v icTcprjp.e'vaL, i^rj(xl(avTai 
be dpbvoi, tov rol/s p.hv l ~Epp.r)s, robs bk icpopq. 6ip.it. See p. 119. 
,/""*' Even in the previous century Julius Caesar had shown his in- 
terest in education by granting the franchise to all physicians 
and teachers of liberal arts who were living or should live at 
Rome (Suet., Jul., 42), while Augustus, in banishing foreigners 
from Rome, made an exception in favor of these two classes 
(ib., Aug., 42). The history of Greek sophistry for the centuries 
lying between the time of Isocrates and the end of the first cen- 
tury A. D. is hard to make out owing to the lack of material. 
H. v. Arnim, Leben u. Werke d. Dio von Prusa, ch. i. (followed by 
Wilamowitz-M Ollendorff, Hermes, 35, pp. 1-52), gives the presum- 
able course of the struggle for supremacy between the rhetorical 
and the philosophical education during this period somewhat as 
follows : At first the contest was about evenly balanced, but when 
Aristotle gave to rhetoric the protection of his favor, this subject 
gained a temporary advantage. With the conquests of Alexander 
in the East, there was opened a broader field for the practice of the 
rhetor, and victory lay for a time with the oratorical training. 
In the third century the individual sciences were emancipated 



80 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The Emperor Claudius (41-54) was from the first 
well disposed toward Greece and showed in various 
ways his interest in the country and its people. He re- 
stored to their original homes many Grecian works of 
art which had been carried out of the land in the reigns 
of his predecessors, 1 and under him Greek freedmen 
rose to a new importance in the Roman Court and state. 
His fondness for the Greek language and literature is 
well known. He also established a foundation at Alex- 
andria, bearing his own name. 2 

Nero (54-68) refined upon the Hellenism of Claudius 
and carried it a step further. He never, it is true, out of 
regard for the avenging Eumenides — he himself, like 
Orestes, being a matricide — visited Athens, but he 
imitated, from pure egotism no doubt, the example of 
Flamininus at Corinth, and proclaimed, at the Isthmian 
games of 67, the freedom of all the Greeks. It is not 
necessary to repeat here the history of the extravagant 
manner in which this emperor testified to his admira- 
tion for all things Greek, and sought to exalt his own 

from philosophy and came to the fore. Toward the end of the 
third century rhetoric began to make a system for itself, and 
philosophy fell to the rear. The second half of the second century 
was filled with the cpntest over the question, whether rhetoric 
was a r^x vr l or not, and over the W\os and the epyop of rhetoric. 
Next, the contest was carried to Rome and made much of there. 
Cicero tried to restore to philosophy something of her ancient 
rights, but he secured no permanent results; philosophy became 
with the Romans an £yiciJK\iov -rraidevfia. Among the Greeks it still 
retained some remnant of its former glory. Bury (Roman Em- 
pire, p. 573) aptly compares the controversy waged under the 
Empire between the merits of philosophy and rhetoric to the 
controversy raised in modern times as to the respective educa- 
tional values of classical literature and science. 

1 Paus., ix. 27, 3; Dio Cass., lx. 6. 2 Suet., Claud., 42. \\ 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 81 

skill and understanding by an appeal to the Greek 
standard. Though his conduct was based on vanity 
and egotism, it was, by its very extravagance, a tribute 
to the superiority of the Grecian intellect and to the in- 
fluence which that superiority exerted over other nations 
— an undignified and uncouth tribute, no doubt, but 
still a tribute. There was in it a sort of recognition of 
the fact that Greece did, by her own right, possess a 
certain claim to the worlds homage. 

The empty honor of "freedom for all the Greeks," 
bestowed by Nero, was withdrawn by Vespasian (69- 
79), who also, after the loose management of his prede- 
cessors, drew the financial reins of his government 
tighter. Though his rule was for these reasons prob- 
ably felt as a hardship by the Greeks, it was in another 
way of genuine benefit to them, for he, first of the em- 
perors, gave marked official recognition to Greek studies. 
He endowed at Rome chairs of Greek and Roman elo- 
quence, with annual salaries of 100,000 sesterces 
($5,000), and rewarded with large sums distinguished 
poets and artists. 1 The first to receive appointment to 
the Latin chair was Quintilian. 2 Vespasian also re- 
lieved from certain public duties 'grammarians/ rhe- ^y 
tors, physicians, and philosophers. 3 

1 Suet., Vesp., 18. 

2 Though it would seem that the first payment was made in the 
reign of Domitian, for Jerome says (in Euseb. Chron.), under the 
year 90 A. D.: Quintilianus ex Hispania Calagurritanus primus 
RomoB publicam scholam et solarium e fisco accepit et claruit. 

3 From the words of Charisius in the Digests (1. 4, 18, 30), it 
would appear that the measure went even back of the time of 
Vespasian: magistris, qui civilium munerum vacationem habent, 
item grammaticis et oratoribus et medicis et philosophis, ne hospitem 



82 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The reign of Domitian (81-96) was again unfavorable 
to all studies, both Greek and Roman. Though 
Domitian was so far Hellenic in his tastes that he or- 
ganized at Rome contests on the pattern of the Olympic 
games and presided at the same in Greek dress, he on 
the other hand drove from the city and from Italy all 
philosophers and teachers of wisdom. 1 Athens had at 
this time, it would appear, re-established her pre- 
eminence in the educational world, for Philostratus, 
who, to be sure, wrote long after and may have inter- 
preted this period somewhat in the light of his own, 
speaks of the young men who in the reign of Domitian 
flocked to the schools of Athens from all quarters of the 
earth." 

With Nerva and Trajan freedom of thought was again 
restored to the Greek and to the Roman world. We 
have not much information with regard to the personal 
connection of these two emperors with Greece, but 
their reigns must have been felt, there as elsewhere, as a 
relief after the long and unpropitious reign of Domitian. 
Nerva (96-98), in the short period during which he was 
emperor, found time to recall from exile the Greek 
rhetor Dio Chrysostom, and this famous man retained 

reciperent, a principibus fuisse immunitatem indultam et divus 
Vespasianus et divus Hadrianus rescripserunt. Although immu- 
nity from the burden of quartering public officials is alone men- 
tioned here as being the gift of Vespasian, immunity from other 
burdens was probably granted by him (Plin., Ep. ad Trai., lviii. 
(lxvi.): cum citarem iudices, domine, conventum inchoaturus, Fla- 
vius Archippus vacationem peter e coepit ut philosophus; see also 
Tac, Dial, de or., 9). 

1 Suet., Domit., 10; Tac, Agric, 2. See, further, Hertzberg, 
Gesch. Griech., ii. p. 142, n. 42. Titus confirmed all Vespasian's 
rescripts (Suet., Tit., 8). a 359. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 83 

the favor and friendship of the following emperor, 
Trajan (98-117). Trajan, further, so we are told by 
Philostratus, 1 bestowed upon the distinguished sophist 
Polemo the privilege of travelling by land and sea free 
of charge, a privilege which was extended by Hadrian 
to the sophist's children. More and more, we see, the 
emperors were taking an intelligent interest in this land 
to the east, and the time was not far distant when its 
schools were to be given an official standing. 
tThus it was that Hadrian (117-138), he who was so 
fully imbued with the spirit of Hellenism that, as we are 
told by a late historian, 2 he completely adopted the 
studies, the manner of life, the language, and the whole 
culture of the Athenians, and who, even after he had 
become emperor, lived on terms of perfect intimacy 
and friendship with Greek philosophers and sophists, 
determined to restore to Greece her proper place among 
the peoples; and with him begins a new era for the 
country, a new inspiration of national life. Hadrian 
aimed to unite, under Athens as a head, the scattered 
fragments of the Greek race. For this purpose he in- 
stituted at Athens the Pan-Hellenic synod, or assembly, 
and a new national assembly, called the Pan-Hellenia, 
to both of which all Greek communities, wherever es- 
tablished, were permitted to send representatives. As 
a place of congress and centre of the new nationality, he 
built the temple of Zeus Pan-Hellenios. This was but 
one, and not the most important, of the many buildings 
with which he adorned Athens. The temple of the 
Olympian Zeus, begun by Peisistratus, continued by 
1 532. a Aurelius Victor, Epit., 14. 



84 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Antiochus Epiphanes, and now completed by Hadrian, 
a pantheon patterned after that at Rome, a gymnasium, 
a stoa and library, and many other buildings, arose 
within a few years. A whole new quarter of the city 
was laid out and built to the south-east of the Acropolis, 
near the Ilissus, and separated from the old city by an 
arch commemorating the event. In many other parts of 
Greece also Hadrian caused fine buildings to be erected, 
but it was upon Athens that he bestowed his special 
favor. 

His activity, however, was not confined to the erec- 
tion of fine buildings. In many ways he showed his in- 
terest in Greek studies, and he bestowed many favors 
on Grecian philosophers and other men of learning. He 
confirmed the decrees of previous emperors, granting 
immunity to teachers and others, and granted still 
further privileges at first hand. 1 The impulse which he 
gave to the cause of learning must have been immense, 
and well might the Athenians begin to number their 
years anew from the date of the first arrival of Hadrian 
at Athens. 2 

One act of Hadrian — an act relative to the succes- 
sion to the headship in one of the philosophical schools 
at Athens — shows how far these schools had already 
become objects of oversight and control to the imperial 
government at Rome. Plotina, the mother of the em- 
peror, was a member of the Epicurean school. It 
was a regulation bearing upon this school (and prob- 
ably upon the other schools as well) that none but 

1 Dig., 1. 4, 18, 30; Philos., 532. 
8 Dittenberger, in Hermes, 7, 213. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 85 

Roman citizens should be appointed to the headship, 
while it was also a law of the realm that wills (except 
for bequests in trust) should be written in Latin. These 
restrictions were felt by the members of the school to be 
onerous. Accordingly Plotina wrote to the emperor, 
begging that the incumbent of the headship, Popillius 
Theotimus, be permitted to write in Greek that part of 
his will which referred to school matters, and that he 
further be allowed to select his successor from among 
citizens and non-citizens alike. It was pointed out that 
the restriction that was set upon the selection of a Head 
made it difficult to find the right man for the place, while 
the privilege possessed by the members of the school of 
passing upon the selection made by the testator and, on 
occasion, of substituting another man in his stead had 
been the source of nothing but good to the school. The 
request was granted by Hadrian, who made the privilege 
to apply not only to Theotimus, but to future Heads of 
the school as well. 1 

One of the most important acts of Hadrian was the 
establishment at Rome of the Athenceum, which was 
designed as a rallying-place and theatre of display for 
Greek and Roman sophists and poets, and afterward 
became the centre of the University of Rome. The 
name, of course, speaks of the beloved Athens. He also 

1 For the inscription, containing Plotina 'a letter to the em- 
peror in Latin, the emperor's reply to Plotina in Latin, and 
Plotina's proclamation of the result of her petition, to the mem- 
bers of the school, in Greek, see Dessau, Insc. Lot. sel., ii. 2, 1906, 
No. 7784. Hadrian is referred to in Plotina 's proclamation in 
the following terms: rCbi us dXrjdQs evepytrrji ko.1 irdcrrfs Tr[a]i5das 
ko<tht)tt)i 6vti. See also Diels, Archiv. f. Gesch. d. Philos., 4, pp. 
486-491. 



86 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

confirmed the privileges of the Museum at Alexandria, 
and honored several sophists and other men of learning 
by making them members of this institution. Thus, 
the sophists, Polemo of Smyrna and Dionysius of Mile- 
tus, as well as Pancrates, a poet, were so distinguished. 1 

The movement which was thus started by Hadrian 
was continued by the two succeeding emperors and by 
the wealthy sophist, Herodes Atticus. Herodes, though 
a private individual, rivalled, with his almost fabulous 
wealth, even the emperors themselves in his zeal for 
building and his lavish expenditure of money. The 
beautiful Odeum, on the south-western slope of the 
Acropolis, built in memory of his wife Regilla, and the 
Panathenaic stadium, near the Ilissus, remodelled and 
constructed entirely of Pentelic marble, testified to his 
generous love for Athens. One of the foremost sophists 
of his day, he was also an admirer and patron of soph- 
ists, and he lived on terms of friendly intimacy with 
three emperors. He died late in the reign of Marcus 
Aurelius. 

Antoninus Pius (138-161), though he seems, after 
becoming emperor, never to have visited Athens, was 
an earnest friend of learning, and showed his interest in 
the philosophers and rhetoricians in a very material and 
important way. He gave, we are told, honors and sala- 
ries to rhetoricians and philosophers throughout the 
provinces. 2 The honors, apparently, consisted for the 
most part of exemption from certain taxes and im- 
munity from certain public duties. These duties, or a 

1 Philos., 532, 533, 524; Athen., xv. 21, p. 677. 
"Jul. Capit., Anton. Pius, 11. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 87 

part of them, are mentioned in the Digests: 1 aedileships, 
pciestships, jury service, the superintendency of palaes- 
trae and the paying of training-masters, army service, 
etc. Physicians and 'grammarians' were also ex- 
empted from these duties. It is interesting to note that 
physicians were, from the earliest times, recognized 
as public benefactors, and were so treated by Greek 
legislators. Diodorus Siculus tells us that in very early 
times they received salaries from the state.' 
(With regard to the salaries ordained by Antoninus 
Pius, it seems probable that these were to be paid by the 
cities themselves, and that, only when the cities were 
unable to pay them, were they paid from the Fiscus, or 
imperial chest. As we are told that Antoninus made 
these regulations to apply to all the provinces, we 
should be led to expect that at Athens a beginning was 
now made of establishing academic chairs with salaries 
attached, and such, in fact, seems to have been the case. 
A chair of rhetoric was, it would appear, established, and 
the first man to occupy it, according to Philostratus, was 
Lollianus of Ephesus. 3 Either now or in the reign of 

1 xxvii. 1, 6. The honors nearly all, however, went back to 
a time earlier than Hadrian; Antoninus simply confirmed edicts 
issued by Hadrian and preceding emperors. It was the usual 
practice of emperors, on coming into power, to confirm the acts 
of their predecessors, as each emperor's acts were considered to 
be personal to himself and to expire with his recession from 
power. a xii. 13. 

8 Philos., 526. That the salaries were to be paid by the munic- 
ipalities, and that, only in case the municipalities could not pay 
them, were they paid by the emperor, is the view of Zumpt 
(Ueber den Bestand d. phil. Schul., p. 45). This view, though 
probable, is not certain. The political chair held by Apollonius 
of Athens (Philos., 600: rod ttoKitikoO dpbvov) Zumpt (p. 49) 
understands to be a municipal chair at Athens, while the chair 



88 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the following emperor a chair of 'grammar' was also 
probably established at Athens, while some provision 

later established by Marcus Aurelius, the so-called chair of the 
sophists, or sophistical chair (Philos., 588: rod t&v ao<pio-rQv dpbvov • 
618: rbv 'Adtfvrjon rQv <to<Pi<ttQv dpbvov Sopater in Proleg. ad 
Aristeid., iii. p. 739: rbv dpbvov rbv ao<piariKbv' Phot., Bibl., 
cod. 80, p. 60: rbv o-oQiariicbv dpbvov), he takes to be an imperial 
endowment. That the latter was the case would seem to be 
certain (Philos., 566: ^ri rah iic pao-iXtus nvplaw cf. 591). 
Brandstatter (Leipz. Stud., 15, pp. 194, 244), from a comparison 
of the words iroXinicbs and <ro<piariKbs as they are used by Greek 
writers, concludes that they here have reference to the character 
of the eloquence taught, and that the political chair was a chair 
of judicial eloquence (see also Liebenam, Stddteverwaltung, p. 79, 
n. 2). The following considerations seems to support Zumpt's 
view rather than Brandstatter's: 1. We nowhere else find mention 
made of an endowed chair of judicial oratory, while there were 
chairs of sophistry municipally endowed in various parts of the 
Empire at this, and at a later, time (see p. 134; Dig., 1. 9, 4, 2). 
2. The chair here called iroXiriicbs is called by Philostratus in 526, 
and perhaps elsewhere (see p. 94, n. 1), 6 ' kd-qv-qai dpbvos. 3. 
There is a difficulty in distinguishing between the activities of 
the incumbents of the political chair and those of the incumbents 
of the sophist's chair. Thus, Theodotus was appointed to the 
sophistical chair, though he is called aywvio-TTjs twv ttoXltikQv \bywv 
Kal f>t)TopiKr)s 6<pe\os (Philos., 567). The holders of the political 
chair are classed as sophists, and they seem to have differed in 
no respect from those who are known to have held the sophistical 
chair. Thus, Apollonius the Athenian wrote in a metrical style 
quite out of keeping with what we are told should be the style of 
a teacher of political eloquence (ib., 601, 602), and Lollianua, 
besides having a sophistical style, held 'displays' and spoke ex- 
tempore (ib., 527). Apollonius of Naucratis, though a rival of 
Heracleides, who apparently held the sophistical chair, practised 
political speeches (ib., 599). 4. There is a recognized use of 
iro\iTt/c6$ in the sense of publicus, civilis, municipalis, as applied 
to public services, or liturgies; e. g., Dig., xxvii. 1, 15, 12; see ib., 
1. 4, 14 and 18; also Kuhn, Verf. d. rom. Reichs, i. p. 40. On the 
other hand, there were undoubtedly in various cities teachers of 
a base oratory, forensic or judicial (Philos., 274, 331, 566, 570, 
614; [Luc], Amores, 9; Lib., iii. 449, 17; Isoc, De antid., 30, 37- 
41), and it is possible that some of these held endowed chairs. 
If the 'political chair' at Athens was one of the latter, it may 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 89 

seems to have been made at this time for the granting 
of salaries to philosophers. 1 

^With regard to the number of sophists, 'gramma- 
rians/ and physicians, whom it was permitted to honor 
in the aforesaid ways, Antoninus gave very specific di- 
rections. Small cities might have privileged five phy- 
sicians, three sophists, and three ' grammarians ' ; 
larger cities, that is, those in which there were courts 
established, seven physicians, four sophists, and four 
'grammarians'; capital cities, ten physicians, five 

haye been endowed by the city or it may have been endowed by 
the emperor. At the beginning of the second half of the third 
century there were still two chairs of rhetoric at Athens (Eunap., 
p. 11). Tatian (Or. ad Grcec, 19) says: ol yap trap' vyuv (pi\6<ro<poi 
TOffovrov airode'ovai rijs dcrKr/o'ecvs uxrre irapa rod 'Pu)p.alu)v (3a<ri.\e'u)s 
irrjatovs x/>u<roOs ei;aKOO~iovs \ap.fiavet.v rivas els ovde'v xPV <Tl f JL0V % Stus 
fnj8e' rb ytveiov dwpeav Kadeip.e'vov avrCjv ex 0V<rLV - The date of this 
speech has been set as early as 152 A. D. (Christ, Gr. Lit., p. 891) 
and as late as 173 A. D. (see Aime Puech, Recherches sur le 
discours aux Grecs de T alien, pp. 10, 96). At this time, there- 
fore, salaries had already been assigned to certain philosophers. 
The amount of the salary, six hundred gold pieces (= 60,000 
sesterces = $3,000), was greater than the amount of the salary 
given to philosophers at Athens. Sophists at Rome received a 
higher salary than sophists at Athens (see p. 81), but the 
reference here can hardly be to philosophers at Rome. It is pos- 
sible that the philosophers at Athens are meant, and that the 
discrepancy between Philostratus's 10,000 drachmae and Tatian's 
600 aurei is to be explained as a case of inexactness of statement 
or as due to a change in currency values. An amusing inscription 
to Lollianus has been found at Athens (Kaibel, Ep. Gr., No. 877). 
1 For the 'grammarian,' see Eunap., p. 7: Aoyyivos (in the 
third century) . . . uplveiv ye robs TraXaiovs ^TreWra/cTo, tcaOdirep 
trpb inelvov iroWoi rives irepoi, Kal 6 £k Kapias Aiovij<rtos ' Suidas, 8. V. 
YlayLirpe'in.os ' iraph rijs irbXews ypanp.ari.Kbs alpedeis (in the fifth cen- 
tury). Cf. Phot., Bibl., cod. 242, p. 346 b: ol 8e 'AdyvaToi 
ypap.puariKbv avrbv iiroiyaavro Kal tirl viois 8i8d<TKa\ov i<JTy\aav. For 
the philosophers, see Jul. Capit., Anton. Pius, 11, and the passage 
in Tatian cited in the preceding note. 



90 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

sophists, and five 'grammarians.' This number might 
not, on any pretext whatever, be exceeded, but, in the 
case of certain duties, it might, on occasion, be dimin- 
ished. Immunity was to be granted only after formal 
vote of the local council and enrolment of the bene- 
ficiary in the official list of beneficiaries. No limit was 
set to the number of philosophers who might be hon- 
ored, as they were in any case not numerous. 1 

These do not exhaust the regulations set forth by 
Antoninus Pius relative to the appointments to what 
may be called the "Fellowships of Arts and Sciences." " 
We can see from these, however, that the appointments 
were made the subject of a formal and elaborate system; 
they were no longer meant to be given arbitrarily and at 
caprice to individual professors by individual em- 
perors, though, as will be evident later, famous sophists 

1 Dig., xxvii. ii., 6. It is suggested by Mommsen, The Provinces of 
the Roman Empire (trans.), i. P- 393, that the edict of Antoninus 
Pius, limiting the number of persons who might be privileged, 
was called for by the burdensomeness of the existing arrangement, 
whereby unrestricted exemption was possible; this measure, 
therefore, would imply previous imperial grants. 

' Thus, Antoninus stated that it was expected that philosophers 
who had the means would voluntarily render to their country 
services involving the expenditure of money. At a later time, 
Septimius Severus and Caracalla established the law that a 
teacher or physician who was born in one city and was teaching 
or practising in another might not claim immunity in the city of 
his birth; but under Antoninus provision was made for honoring 
thus men of exceptional skill who were teaching or practising 
in cities in which the legal number of appointments had already 
been made. Teachers of sophistry, and probably other teacher* 2 
also (c/. Dig., 1. 5, 9), whether salaried or not, if established a\ 
Rome, were so privileged; the theory in this case being that he 
who was teaching at Rome was teaching in the common father- 
land of all. Teachers of law, while privileged at Rome, were not 
privileged in the provinces. : See Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 7, 9-12; 1.5, 9. 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 91 

were often specially honored, and sometimes dishonored 
as^well. 

i The university thus established at Athens, through 
the agency of Antoninus Pius, was developed by Marcus 
Aurelius (161-180). Marcus Aurelius, from his youth 
a friend and companion of Greek philosophers and 
sophists, a student of Herodes Atticus, with whom he, 
even after he had become emperor, continued on terms 
of intimacy and whose lectures he continued to attend, 
was a firm friend of Greek learning, but he found, 
owing to the exigencies of his reign, little time to devote 
to peaceful pursuits. He did, however, in the intervals 
of his campaigns, carry on the work begun by his pred- 
ecessor in the Greek schools. Early in the second half 
of his reign, apparently, he established at Athens, by the 
side of the already-existing chair of rhetoric, which was 
possibly salaried by the city, a second chair, with much 
higher salary attached. The salary of this chair was to 
be paid from the imperial chest. The first sophist to be 
appointed to the new chair was Theodotus, and he held 
the position two years, till his death. Then, whether 
immediately after or not is uncertain, but presumably 
so, Adrian of Tyre, a pupil of Herodes Atticus and one 
of the most famous sophists of the time, was called by 
the emperor to fill the position. When Marcus made 
this appointment, he had neither heard Adrian declaim, 
nor had he even seen him, but he called the man solely 
on the basis of his great reputation. So it was that, 
when Marcus, in 176, passed through Athens on his way 
to Rome from the East, he determined to listen to a 
sample of Adrian's eloquence, and he set the sophist a 



92 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

theme to discuss. Adrian was so successful in his treat- 
ment of the theme that Marcus, well pleased with his 
oratory, bestowed upon him many gifts and honors. 1 
After this, the emperor completed the work which he 
had begun, and endowed several chairs (probably two 
in each school) in the four schools of philosophy — the 
Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. 2 

1 All that is certain with regard to the date at which this chair 
was established is that it was not later than 174. We know that 
Marcus was at Smyrna in the spring of 176 (Clinton, Fasti Ro- 
mani, ad an. 176), and that he later in the same year repaired to 
Athens, where he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries 
(Jul. Capit., Marc. Ant. Phil., 27). At that time Adrian already 
held the chair of sophistry at Athens (Philos., 588). Zumpt 
(Ueber den Bestand d. phil. Schul., p. 51) conjectures, as the date, 
168, when the emperor was at Sirmium, and Hertzberg (Gesch. 
Griech., ii. p. 411) puts it in the second half of Marcus's reign. 
All that Philostratus says on the matter is iicpdrei nip ijSrj rov twv 
ffoQiaruiv dpbvov (588). If this suggests that the appointment of 
Adrian was recent at the time of Marcus's visit to Athens, the 
establishment of the chair was also probably of recent date, 
for, as stated in the text, Theodotus, the immediate predecessor, 
as it would seem, of Adrian, was the first to occupy the chair, 
and he held it two years until his death (ib., 566, 567). Adrian 
was in Rome between the years 164 and 168 and attended a 
clinic of Galen there (Galen, xiv. p. 627). This was before the 
sophist was established at Athens (otfirw <ro<piar&juv) . Sopater 
(Proleg. ad Aristeid., iii. p. 739) says that Herodes Atticus held 
the chair of sophistry at Athens, but this seems not to have been 
the case. 

3 The number of philosophical chairs established by Marcus 
Aurelius is nowhere definitely stated. The two passages bearing 
on the subject are these: Philos., 566: rovs fxtv HXaruveLovs Kal rovs 
dirb rrjs Sroas Kal rovs dirb rov Hepiirdrov Kal avrov '~EiriKo6pov trpovi- 
ra&v 6 MdpKos rip 'Updfdrj Kp?vai, and Luc, Eunuch., 3: avvrtraKrat. 
p.iv . . . £k /SacrtX^ws p.io~do<popd tl% ov (pavXrj Kara ytvr) rots 0tXocr60ois, 
Stou/ccus X£yu> Kal TLXaruviKOis Kai 'Eirinovpelois, en 8t Kal toTs £k tov 
Hcptirdrov, rd foa TOjJrotj diraaiv. c5ct 5£ dirodavdvros avr&v twos 
AXKov dvTiKadlo'Tacrdai. . . . Kal rd ad\a . . . p.6piai Kard rbv 
iviavrbv. . . . otSa ravra. Kai rivd <paaiv avr&v cuayxot dirodavttv, 
ruv TLepiirarriTiKCbv ofyieu rbv Zrepov. These passages would seem to 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 93 

"Marcus," says Dio Cassius, "after he had come to 
Athens and been initiated, gave to the Athenians honors, 
and to the whole world teachers at Athens, with annual 
salaries, in every branch of literary study," and Zonaras 
adds that the salaries were to be paid from the imperial 
coffers. 1 The appointments to the philosophical chairs 
were to be made, after examination of the candidates, 
by the venerable sophist, Herodes Atticus, while, in the 
case of the chair of sophistry, the appointment was made 
now, and for some time to come, by the emperor him- 
self. 

It is evident from all the passages bearing on the 
subject that Marcus aimed to make of Athens a real 
university centre, and that the measures he took in 
furtherance of his aim were thorough-going and ex- 
tensive. It is possible, as has been said above, that cer- 
tain salaries had already been assigned to philosophers 
at Athens by Antoninus Pius, but, if this was so, Mar- 
cus, we may believe, increased their number and value, 
while he changed the method of appointment to the 
philosophical chairs, and not improbably made other 
changes in the management of the schools. These 
changes were apparently in the direction of a loss of 
independence on the part of the schools and greater 

point to two chairs in each school, but Zumpt ( Ueber den Bestand 
d. phil. SchuL, p. 50) understands that there was but one chair 
established in each school by Marcus, while the second was that 
supported by the school itself. But it is not improbable that 
the succession in nearly all the schools had at this time run 
out (see p. 102, n. 1). See, further, Sandys, Hist. Clas. Schol., i. 
p. 309, and Grasberger, Erzieh. u. Unterr. im klass. Alterth., iii. 
p. 445. 

'Dio. Cass., lxxi. 31; Zon., xii. 3. 



94 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

oversight and control of the schools on the part of the 
emperor. The holder of the chair of sophistry, if not 
actually put over the University as a whole, at least 
ranked in dignity above the other professors. 1 At 
this time, the philosophical and the rhetorical depart- 
ment were kept more or less apart, but in the fourth 
century, after the decline of philosophy at Athens, the 
chair of sophistry was undoubtedly of commanding im- 
portance, and then the incumbent of this chair was 
probably also the Head of the University. 2 

Such is the history of the establishment of the Uni- 
versity of Athens. The period of nearly three quarters 
of a century (117-180), embracing the reigns of Hadrian 
and the first two Antonines, was a period of happiness 

1 The following expressions point to this conclusion: Philos., 
566: TrpoicTt] bk Kal rijs ' kdrjvaluv vebrr^Tos 7rpwTO$ M rats iic 
fia<Ti\4us (jivplcus • ib., p. 567: iirtupive rots plots' ib., 588: iirira^v 
avrbv rots vtovs. Elsewhere the chair is called "the chair of the 
sophists " (ib., 588: rov tQv oocpurrCbv dpbvov), "the chair of the 
sophists at Athens" (ib., 618: rbv ^Ad^vrioi tQv co<piar0>v dpbvov), or 
simply "the chair at Athens" (ib., 587, twice: rod 'Affirm dpbvov). 
In the following places the context makes it certain that the 
same chair is referred to: ib., 566, 567, 591, 593, 621, 622, 623. 
In ib., 526, though the same expression, rov 'Atf^crt dpbvov, is used, 
the reference must be to the political chair, for Theodotus was 
the first to hold the more exalted chair (ib., 566). The following 
references are less certain than those given above, but the 
sophistical chair is probably meant: ib., 594, 599, 613, 627. iirl 
rrjs Kadtbpas occurs in an inscription (Dittenberger, Syl. Inscr. 
Graze, i. No. 382; date, 244-249 A. D.). Of a later time, in Athens, 
tov dpbvov (Eunap., p. 95), and rov TratbevriKov dpbvov (ib., p. 95; 
but see p. 220, n. 4). See also p. 87, n. 3, and p. 142, n. 3. 
Sophists not infrequently resigned the chair at Athens in order 
to accept the chair at Rome (called 6 Kara ttjv 'Fwfirjv dpbvos or 6 
&v(a dpbvos- Philos., 580, 589, 594, 596, 627). The sophist was 
sometimes said to 'have his seat' in the place where he taught 
(e. g., Lib., i. 126, 6: irapb. Bidwois iKadrjfirjv). 

2 Compare the School of Antioch (pp. 270 ff.). 



UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ESTABLISHED 95 

and well-being for all Grecian lands. Sophists and 
other men of learning thronged in the cities of Greece 
and Asia Minor, and crowds of eager students, young 
and old, flocked to their lectures. Education had never 
before been at so high a premium. "All Ionia," says 
Philostratus, "is like a college of learned men, but 
Smyrna holds the first place, like the bridge upon the 
cithara." ■ At other cities also there were famous 
schools, some of which became even more famous in 
succeeding centuries, as at Berytus, Tarsus, Antioch, 
Ephesus, etc. Most famous of all, perhaps, though not 
so much in the line of sophistry as of scientific learning 
and philosophv, was Alexandria, with its museum and 
libraries. This was the age of the distinguished soph- 
ists, Polemo of Laodicea in Caria, Lollianus of Ephesus, 
Adrian of Tyre, Theodotus the Athenian, Scopelian of 
Clazomenae, Philager the Cilician, Hermogenes of Tar- 
sus, the oft-mentioned Herodes Atticus, and many more. 
Of many of these men we have no literary remains, and, 
in fact, the reputation of most of them was based on 
the spoken, rather than on the written, word. Of 
Herodes and Polemo we have one short speech each, 
and of Hermogenes several works of some value on the 
theory of rhetoric. Aristeides of Adriani in Mysia, who 
was compared by the ancients themselves to Demos- 
thenes, has left us a considerable body of writings, as 
has the more important Dio of Prusa, called the " Gol- 
den-mouthed," of an earlier age. The biographer of 
these men is Philostratus, himself a sophist, who lived 
in the first half of the third century, and wrote his work, 
1 516. Cf. Aristeid., i. p. 376. 



96 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The Lives of the Sophists, in the reign of Alexander 
Severus. Nor must we omit to mention the most original 
of all the sophists of this period, one in whose pages we 
see the manners of the age depicted from their most 
amusing side — Lucian. 

It does not come within the province of these chapters 
to deal with every field of literary and scientific activity, 
and some mention has already been made in a previous 
chapter ■ of those branches of learning that stood in 
close relation to the study of sophistry. There was much 
activity in all lines of scientific and philological research 
in this century and the centuries that followed, but there 
were few names in any line to be compared with the 
great names of the Alexandrian period. Rhetoric, the 
technical side of sophistry, was of course cultivated, 
while, in the field of grammar, more scientific methods 
came to the fore, and the foundations of Greek syntax 
were laid. The study of geography, which had received 
a fresh impulse at the time of the conquests of Alex- 
ander, was continued with vigor in the early imperial 
times; but mathematics and astronomy, though not 
wholly neglected in the first centuries of the Christian 
era — witness the name of Ptolemy — were at this time 
suffering a temporary relapse, after their great activity 
in the Alexandrian period. Medicine was well repre- 
sented. Of philosophy we shall have occasion to speak 
in connection with the next century. 

1 Ch. I. 



CHAPTER VI 

HISTORY OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FROM 
MARCUS AURELIUS TO CONSTANTINE 

, Never again, after the death of Marcus Aurelius, did 
Greece enjoy the benefits of imperial favor as she had 
done during the preceding sixty or seventy years. After 
that time, those who sat on the throne were often men of 
little cultivation, with no taste for literature or learning, 
and, if there was occasionally one who had the inclina- 
tion to patronize letters, the time and opportunity were 
for the most part lacking. Dark clouds also soon began 
to gather round the state. Civil wars and military 
revolutions, intrigues of rival claimants and foreign cam- 
paigns, served to occupy the attention of the reigning 
monarchs and to sap the strength of the Empire. Occa- 
sionally, also, was heard the distant thunder of the bar- 
barian hordes along the northern frontier, giving warn- 
ing of the storm that was soon to break. Plagues and 
earthquakes, and an increasing uncertainty as to how 
the financial needs of the government were, from year 
to year, to be met, added to the confusion of the times. 
Still, this was not, up to the middle of the third century 
at least, the worst period which Greece had experienced. 

The Severi if not enthusiastic patrons of literature and 

97 



98 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

education, were not for the most part inimical to them, 
and, under more favorable circumstances, they might, 
in some cases, have proved of genuine benefit. The 
appointments to the imperial chair of sophistry, as is 
evident from Philostratus, 1 continued to be made by 
the emperors, and the emperors confirmed and ex- 
panded, on occasion, the edicts of Antoninus Pius and 
Marcus Aurelius relative to the privileges of sophists, 
philosophers, and others. Commodus (180-193), the 
last of the Antonines, was not insensible to the charms 
of oratory, and he raised to honorable position two 
famous sophists, Adrian of Tyre and Polydeuces of 
Naucratis. 3 Septimius Severus (193-211), it is true, 
deprived Heracleides the Lycian of the immunities 
attaching to his position as Professor of Sophistry at 
Athens, because the latter failed in a speech made 
in the imperial presence, 3 but otherwise he seems to 
have been not ill-disposed toward Greece and to have 
stood in close personal relation to the Greek cities. 
Athens alone, unfortunately, incurred, for a trifling 
reason, his resentment, and was deprived of certain 
privileges, probably either political or territorial. The 
refined Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus and 
mother of Caracalla, was herself a student and a friend 
and patron of students. She procured, in the reign of 
her son, the professorship at Athens for the sophist, 
Philiscus of Eordsea in Macedonia, 4 and she was a friend 
of Philostratus, who wrote his Life of Apollonius of 

1 E. g., 591, 593, 622. 

■Philos., 590, 593; cf. Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 8. For Pertinax, see 
Jul. Capit., Pert., 11. 3 Philos., 601, 614. 

* Philos., 622; cf. Dio Cass., lxxv. 15; lxxvii. 18. 



FROM MARCUS TO CONSTANTINE 99 

Tyana at her request. Little that is favorable can be 
said of Caracalla (211-217) from our point of view, if 
from any. Not only did he deprive Philiscus of the im- 
munities attaching to his position, but he in a fit of anger 
threatened to do the same for all sophists, though he 
seems not to have meant the threat seriously, for he 
never carried it into execution. 1 His treatment of the 
Peripatetic philosophers was still more harsh. Accusing 
Aristotle of having been accessory to the death of Alex- 
ander the Great, for whom the emperor had a fanciful 
admiration, he threatened to burn the books, wherever 
found, of all the philosopher's followers, and he actually 
deprived the Peripatetics of their salaries and other 
emoluments at Alexandria. 3 Alexander Severus (222- 
235) received a Greek education, and, like Septimius 
Severus, was one of the better emperors of this period. 
He established salaries and built lecture-rooms at Rome 
for rhetors, ' grammarians/ physicians, astrologers, 
architects, and others, and instituted a system whereby 
free-born children of poor parents should have the cost 
of their education defrayed by the state. He also 
granted certain favors of a financial character to legal 
orators in the provinces. 3 

We should say, then, that, although the University of 
Athens did not, in this period, that is, during the half- 
century immediately following the death of Marcus 
Aurelius, enjoy the particular favor of the emperors, 
it was still, having been firmly established by the An- 

1 Philos., 623. Compare his conduct toward the sophists 
Philostratus and Heliodorus (ib., 623, 626). 

2 Dio Cass., lxxvii. 7. * 3 Lamprid., Alex. Sev., 44. 



100 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tonines on a basis of its own, in a hardly less flourishing 
condition than in the previous period. The list of 
famous sophists whose names appear in the pages of 
Philostratus is a long one, and includes Antipater of 
Hierapolis, Polydeuces (otherwise Pollux) of Naucratis, 
Hippodromus of Larissa, Heracleides the Lycian, Ap- 
ollonius and Proclus of Naucratis, Apollonius the 
Athenian, and Philiscus of Eordsea. 

One tendency of this period we have specially to 
notice. We saw ■ that Antoninus Pius, in defining the 
number of teachers and others whom it was permitted 
in the different classes of cities to honor officially with 
immunity from public burdens, put no restriction on the 
number of philosophers, holding that the philosophers 
altogether were not many, and that the number of such 
who would be likely to apply for immunity would not be 
large. From the pages of Lucian we should hardly 
infer that there was in his time any lack of self-styled 
philosophers in Greece and the lands inhabited by 
Greeks — and, indeed, we are told that, in consequence 
of the favor shown by Marcus Aurelius to men of learn- 
ing, a large crop of philosophical weeds immediately 
sprang up 2 — but it was undoubtedly the case that in 

1 P. 90. 

a Dio Cass., lxxi. 35, 2; Herodian, i. 2. There seem, however, 
to have been more philosophers outside Attica than at Athens 
(Luc, Drap., 24, 25); Attica was too poor to attract many — 
Philippopolis, in Thrace, near the rich gold and silver mines of 
that country, offered greater attractions. Cf. Bury, Roman 
Empire, p. 574: "The towns of Greece swarmed with them 
[spurious philosophers]. Everywhere, Lucian tells us, one meets 
in the streets their long beards, their rolls of books, their thread- 
bare cloaks, and their big sticks. Poor cobblers and carpenters 
leave their shops to rove about the country as begging Cynics. 



FROM MARCUS TO CONSTANTINE 101 

those days philosophy was no longer the power in the 
intellectual world that it had once been, and that it was 
gradually declining from year to year in importance 
and interest. Rhetoric and eloquence, which had for 
long contended on almost equal terms with philosophy, 
were now forging to the head. Still, the race of philoso- 
phers was far from being extinct even in the second 
quarter of the third century. "There were many phi- 
losophers when I was a boy," says the rhetorician 
Longinus, 1 referring to that period, "but now," he con- 
tinues, speaking of a later time, "it is impossible to de- 
scribe how utterly this subject is neglected." Many 
circumstances conduced to the decline of philosophy: 
the changed condition and taste of the times, the inner 
barrenness of the subject as then taught and studied, 
and the rise and spread of Christianity. The philoso- 
phers of that period did little more than repeat in new 
words and phrases, or expound and comment on, the 
old doctrines. Much time was also spent in useless 
argumentation and quibbling. 2 The Peripatetic school 
long maintained itself by the stress which it laid on 
positive science and logic, but, as time went on, it 
gradually tended to merge into the Academic school. 3 

... In the second century the country was infested with 
begging philosophers, carrying scrip and staff like the begging 
monks of the Middle Ages. . . . 

"But, although unpopular and mercilessly jibed at, the phi- 
losophers exercised great influence; and the very existence of a 
multitude of spurious philosophers proves the repute which the 
true philosophers enjoyed." 

1 Porphyr., Vzt. Plotin., 20. 

2 Porphyr., Vit. Plotin., 20; Luc, HermoL, 79, 81, 82. 

3 On the tendency of the philosophies at this time to look to a 
common end, see Themis., 236 b; Jul., or., vi. 184 C-186 A. 



102 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

In the Epicurean and Stoic teachings the ethical ele- 
ment was always strong, and this now failed to satisfy 
the needs of the age. Much that was permanent in the 
Greek ethical teaching had been taken up by Chris- 
tianity, while the spiritually or philosophically inclined 
who were out of sympathy with the new religion arrayed 
themselves from this time on more and more in the 
ranks of Neo-Platonism. This doctrine, which formed 
the last expression of Greek philosophic and religious 
thought, played a more important part in the two cen- 
turies that followed, and we shall therefore speak more 
at length of it later. The endowments of the various 
schools still existed in the first half of the third century 
— and, indeed, regular StdBoxoi, or 'successors/ are 
mentioned, in the case of at least one school, the Aca- 
demic, as late as, or even later than, the reign of Galli- 
enus (260-268), and, in the case of other schools, in the 
reign of Caracalla — but the study of philosophy was 
gradually becoming entirely secondary to the study of 
rhetoric and eloquence. 1 

1 Eubulus was diddoxos of the Academic school at Athens be- 
tween the time when Porphyry went to Rome to study (262) and 
the time when Plotinus died (270): Porphyr., Vit. Plotin., 15. 
Eubulus and Theodotus were StdSoxoi in the youth of Longinus 
(230-240): ib., 20. Athenaeus and Musonius, the Stoics, and Am- 
monius and Ptolemy, the Peripatetics, are mentioned (ib., 20) in 
the same connection as Eubulus and Theodotus, and, though not 
called Scddoxoi, they doubtless were so. Alexander of Aphrodisias 
held an official appointment as teacher of the Peripatetic philoso- 
phy in the time of Septimius Severus and Caracalla (Alex. Aphr., 
De fato, 1). Seneca, writing in the first century A. D. (iV. Q., vii. 
32, 2), says: tot families philosophorum sine successore deftciunt: 
Academici et veteres et minores nullum antistitem reliquerunt. 
Diogenes Laertius in the third century A. D. (x. 9) says that 
the succession in about all the schools but the Epicurean had 






FROM MARCUS TO CONSTANTINE 103 

Soon after the middle of the century, the storm which 
had been gathering about the state broke. The financial 
embarrassment of the government, which had been in- 
creasing from year to year, was now at its height. 
Reckless extravagance on the part of the emperors, 
poor management of the public funds, the increased 
cost of supporting the army, which, since the attitude 
of the barbarians had become more threatening, had 
been greatly enlarged — these, with other, subsidiary, 
causes, had brought the state almost to the verge of 
bankruptcy. Owing to the exportation of large quan- 



run out, but he is probably quoting from an earlier writer. 
Diels (Archiv. f. Gesch. d. Philos., 4, pp. 490, 491) refers Diogenes's 
statement to the jubilation occasioned by the rescript of Hadrian 
relative to the Epicurean school, made in 121 A. D. (see p. 84, 
above; also Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., iii. 1, p. 378). The Seneca 
passage certainly, and probably the Diogenes passage also, dates 
from a time before the reorganization of the schools under Marcus 
Aurelius, and most of the schools may well have been languishing 
at that time. The renewal of life given by Marcus's reorganiza- 
tion is testified to by Galen (xix. p. 50): vwl U d0' o5 ical Siadoxal 
aipiaeuv tl<nv, ovk 6\tyoi Kara T-qvSe tt)v irpScpaaiv dvayopevovaiv 
iavToi/s curb rrjs alptaews, 66ev dvarpicpovrai. From this passage, 
combined with the passage from Porphyry given above, in which 
two 8iddoxot in the Academic school are mentioned, it would ap- 
pear that the word didSoxos at this time referred to the regular 
state appointed and salaried philosophers of the different sects, 
rather than to 'heads' of the schools in the old pre-Christian 
sense. It is probable that, when Marcus Aurelius established 
the philosophical department of the University of Athens, the 
name 8i&5oxos was transferred from the 'heads,' or 'successors,' 
appointed by the schools to the new state-appointed 'heads,' 
or, if the succession had run out, that the word was again brought 
into use with this change of meaning. The schools of philosophy, 
each with two salaried professors, would thus be parallel to the 
school of sophistry. Only the Academic teaching maintained 
itself with any vigor up to the advent of Neo-Platonism. Cf. 
Eunap., p. 6. 



104 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tities of gold and silver to the provinces, and the con- 
version of other large quantities into objects of art, the 
precious metals had become in later years more and 
more rare. 1 To add to the confusion and distress, the 
depreciation of the currency, which had been begun 
by Nero, and had been recklessly continued by suc- 
ceeding emperors, notably by Caracalla and Elagabalus, 
had reached the point where the silver coinage was equal 
to only a fraction of its nominal value, and even gold was 
quite uncertain in its standard. 

With the year 235, when the reign and life of Alex- 
ander Severus came to an end, began a long list of les- 
ser emperors. Most of these were mere military com- 
manders, raised to the throne by acclamation of their 
soldiers, and few of them reigned longer than two or 
three years. None was able to cope successfully with 
the difficulties of the time. 

In the year 250 the Goths, descending from the river 
Dniester, crossed the lower Danube and overran the 
province of Mcesia. This inroad was the first of a con- 
stant succession of similar inroads, made by the tribes 
of the north and lasting through twenty years. In or 
about 267, a band of the Heruli, who lived to the north- 
west of the Black Sea, embarking on ships, sailed 
through the Hellespont, and, ravaging the cities of Asia 
Minor and the islands of the iEgean, advanced as far as 

1 Seeck (JJntergang der antiken Welt, ii. p. 201) mentions, as a 
further cause of diminution in the supply of the precious metals, 
the custom, which had become common in those days, when bar- 
barian inroads, civil wars, and imperial greed rendered the pos- 
session of any treasure uncertain, of burying large sums of gold 
and silver. 



FROM MARCUS TO CONSTANTINE 105 

the coast of the mainland of Greece. Then they went 
through the country, plundering and burning, and 
entered Athens itself. But Dexippus, a distinguished 
schoolman and historian, and worthy successor of his 
famous countrymen of old, collecting a determined band 
of patriots, two thousand strong, lay in wait for the 
Goths not far from the city, and, swooping down upon 
them, drove them in flight from the land. 

This period was the darkest that Greece had ex- 
perienced for many years, and it probably marks the 
point of least prosperity for the University of Athens. 
Imperial favor had long been wanting to the University, 
and at this time the imperial salaries, both those of the 
philosophcal schools and those of the chairs of rhetoric 
and 'grammar/ seem to have been withdrawn. The 
former, with the possible exception of those of the 
Academic school, 1 were perhaps never restored, but the 
latter, when better times returned, were either renewed 
or provided for under a different arrangement. The 
regulations relative to honors and immunities also now 
fell into abeyance, and the whole system was in a condi- 
tion of disarrangement. Fewer students, we can hardly 
doubt, came in those days to Greece, and the number 
of teachers waned. 

But Athens was not the only university town that 
suffered at the hands of the barbarians at this time. 
Throughout Thrace, Macedonia, Asia Minor, and the 
islands of the iEgean, cities were sacked and burned, 
the countryside was laid waste, temples and shrines 
were pillaged, women and children were put to the 
1 See the quotation from Procopius, p. 126, n. 2. 



106 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

sword. Few towns in that section of the world escaped 
uninjured. Philippopolis, Byzantium, Trapezus, Nicsea, 
Nicomedia, were either plundered or burned. Even 
Antioch in Syria suffered from invasions of the Persians. 
Such conditions as these in fully one-half of the Greek 
world at this time were not conducive to the pursuit of 
academical studies. 

The period of depression, however, was not of long 
duration. With the accession of the Emperor Claudius, 
in 268, a new spirit entered the conduct of public affairs, 
and this spirit was sustained under the immediately 
succeeding emperors — Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and 
Cams. In 284 Diocletian came to the throne, and he 
immediately set about instituting a series of reforms, 
which, while they changed the character of the govern- 
ment, restored to it something of its former strength 
and credit. The work of reorganization thus begun by 
Diocletian was continued and brought to a completion 
by Constantine the Great, at the beginning of the next 
century. Under this ruler the Empire entered upon 
another long period of prosperity and efficiency. 
Among the matters which engaged the attention of 
Constantine was the condition of university teaching 
throughout the Empire. In a series of edicts 1 he con- 
firmed the benefits which had been conferred by the 
earlier emperors on teachers and physicians, but in the 
stormy period which had recently passed had been 
allowed to lapse, and added to these still others. The 
salaries and privileges of the sophists, 'grammarians/ 
and physicians were under some system restored, and 
1 See the edicts in Cod. Th., xiii. 3, and Cod. Jus., x. 53. 



FROM MARCUS TO CONSTANTINE 107 

the privileges were extended to their wives, children, 
and goods. It was forbidden for any one to injure a 
sophist, 'grammarian,' or physician, or to bring him 
into court. No special mention is made of philosophers. 
It is probable that there were comparatively few phi- 
losophers at Athens, or indeed elsewhere in Greek 
lands, at this time, and the salaries of the different 
schools, if we except those of the Academic school, 
seem, as has been said, not to have been restored. The 
original endowment of the Academic school still re- 
mained. 

There now began for Athens and for all Greek lands 
the second and last great period of academical activity 
— a period when the Greek university received its most 
complete development and when many of the distinc- 
tive features of Greek university life existed in their 
most pronounced form. The period is marked by such 
giants of sophistry as Julian (not Julian the Emperor, 
but Julian the Sophist), Proseresius, who lived and 
taught in the full exercise of his powers till his ninety- 
second year, Himerius, Themistius (who, though he 
called himself a philosopher, had many of the charac- 
teristics of a sophist), and Libanius, one of the most 
famous men of his time, the friend of Christians and 
pagans, and a successful sophist in Constantinople, 
Nicomedia, and Antioch, and by others hardly less 
distinguished — Epiphanius, Diophantus, Tuscianus, 
Hephsestion, etc. Of some of these we have consider- 
able literary remains, and the lives of most of them are 
told in the pages of Eunapius, who is the historian of 
the sophistry of this century, as Philostratus is of that 



108 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

of the second and third centuries. The works of Li- 
banius, apart from their great historical value, abound 
in interesting details of the life of teachers and students 
in this period, and other sources give us much additional 
information. 

In several ways, however, the new re*gime instituted 
by Constantine was destined to be of disadvantage to 
Athens. Constantinople, the new capital built by 
Constantine on the foundations of the old Greek city of 
Byzantium, was designed to rival Rome in its grandeur 
and importance. Here was the Court of the emperors 
of the East, and "hither," says Libanius, 1 "men promi- 
nent for their learning thronged from all quarters of 
the Empire to make their home." Here also was es- 
tablished, possibly at a somewhat later date, a new 
university under especial imperial favor. All these facts 
could not but in the end tend to throw into the shade 
many a smaller and less favored Greek community. 
The immediate effect on Athens, however, was not 
great, and for many years she continued in the enjoy- 
ment of her newly won prosperity. What, however, 
contained the germs of more serious consequences, and 
contributed in largest measure to the fall of the Uni- 
versity of Athens, was the establishment at this time of 
Christianity as the Court religion. 

• i. 23, 9. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: 
THE CONFLICT WITH CHRISTIANITY 

In order to understand the antagonism that existed, 
or was generally supposed to exist, in the last centuries 
of paganism, between the new religion and the old 
education, we need to understand that the old education 
and culture and the ancient form of devotion and cere- 
monial were, in most men's minds, inseparable. The 
links between the two were so many and so strong that 
the fall of the one meant, in the minds of pagans and 
Christians alike, the fall of the other. All the literary 
material which formed the basis of study in the schools 
was drawn from the ancient life and history of Greece, 
and all the associations of literature and art were con- 
nected with the ancient religion. "There has come 
back from exile, Emperor" — these are the first words 
of the formal greeting which Libanius extended to the 
Emperor Julian when the latter, soon after his accession 
to the throne, came to take up his head-quarters at 
Antioch * — " there has come back from exile, in com- 
pany with the practice of holy rites, honor for the study 
of letters; not alone because letters are, perhaps, not 
the least part of such practice, but also because you 
were aroused by no less a thing than letters to reverence 

« i. 405, 1. 
109 



110 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

for the gods." And again *: "These two things, letters 
and the practice of holy rites, seem to me to be closely 
allied and akin to each other." 

And yet that the new religion and the old culture were 
not incompatible is evident, if we needed such evidence, 
from the fact that many faithful Christians studied at 
Athens side by side with pagans, under the same pagan 
teachers. Prominent among these were the two famous 
churchmen, Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzene. 

1 iii. 437, 1. This attitude is well brought out in the following 
letter (42) of Julian, in which he gives his reasons for issuing 
the edict mentioned below in the text: "Right education I con- 
sider to be not the gracefulness that resides in words and on the 
tongue, but a healthy disposition of an intelligent mind, and true 
opinions about the good and the bad, the noble and the base. 
Whoever, therefore, believes one thing and teaches his pupila 
another, would seem to fall as far short of being educated as he 
does of being a good man. Now if the variance between the 
belief and the teaching is in small matters, the result must, it is 
true, be considered bad, but it is still in a way endurable. But if in 
the greatest matters a man believes one thing and teaches the 
opposite of what he believes, how does he differ at all from the 
huckster — not the good huckster, but the rascally one, who 
teaches most what he thinks most valueless, cheating and en- 
ticing by his praises those to whom he wishes to sell his probably 
worthless wares ? All, therefore, who profess to teach, be the 
thing they teach what it may, should be of good character, and 
should not hold opinions at variance with those of the world at 
large, and especially is this true, I think, of those who instruct 
young men in letters — making of themselves interpreters of the 
ancient writings — whether they be rhetors or ' grammarians,' and 
still more if they be sophists. For these intend, in addition to 
what else they do, to teach, not language alone, but morals as 
well, and they say that what they teach is the philosophy of 
citizenship. . . . Did not Homer and Hesiod and Demosthenes 
and Herodotus and Thucydides and Isocrates and Lysias look 
upon the gods as the guides to all instruction? ... It is un- 
reasonable, it seems to me, for those who interpret the works of 
these men to dishonor the gods who were honored by them. But 
I do not, because their conduct is unreasonable, say that they 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 111 

Both these men held that there was no real antagonism 
between pagan learning and Christian belief, and Basil, 
in a special discourse, endeavored to show that the 
pagan literature was full of examples, precepts, facts 
of history, and anecdotes, of a character to elevate the 
mind, furnish it with good and beautiful ideas, and pre- 
pare it for Christian teaching. 1 A single sophist, of the 
sophists that we know of this period, but he one of the 
greatest of all, Proseresius, is reputed to have been a 
Christian, 2 but there were others, for an edict of Julian 

must change their faith and so keep on with their teaching. I 
give' them the option of not teaching what they do not consider 
of worth, or, if they wish to teach, of first convincing their pupils 
in a practical way that neither Homer nor Hesiod nor any one of 
those whom they interpret and whom they have accused of 
having been impious and ignorant and in error with regard to the 
gods was in fact such. . . . Up to the present time there have 
been many reasons why they should not frequent the temples, 
and the general fear that has threatened has made it pardonable 
if one has concealed his inmost belief with regard to the gods. 
But now that we have received from the gods freedom, it seems 
to me strange that men should teach what they do not look upon 
as right. If, then, they believe in the wisdom of those men whom 
they interpret and of whom they profess to be, as it were, the 
prophets, let them first imitate their piety toward the gods. If, 
on the other hand, they feel that those men were in error in regard 
to the highest truth, let them go into the churches of the Galileans 
and interpret Matthew and Luke. . . . No young man who 
wishes to attend a teacher has been deprived of the opportunity 
to do so. For it would be illogical to bar boys, who do not yet 
know whither to turn, from the best road, and then drive them by 
fear and against their will into the course that their fathers took. 
And yet these, like delirious persons, should be cured even 
against their will; though we should have consideration for all in 
the case of such a sickness. For, I believe, we should instruct, 
and not punish, those who are not in their right mind." 

1 Cf. Sandys, Hist. Clas. Schol., i. p. 349; also Monroe, Hist, of 
Educ., pp. 238-240. 

1 Eunap., p. 92. His Christianity has, however, been doubted 
(Bernhardy, Griech. Lit., p. 693). 



112 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

made it illegal for Christians to teach the pagan 
culture. 1 

Libanius, when he saw the old religious rites no 
longer observed, or observed only in secret, the temples 
closed and public sacrifices forbidden, festivals and 
processions fallen into disuse and oracles unvisited, 
was in sore distress, and, in the anguish of his heart, 
he exclaimed bitterly against the Christian religion. In 
the pages of this author we have an interesting picture 
of the conflict between Christianity and paganism from 
the pagan point of view. The religion of the gods, it 
should be remembered, had existed for centuries by 
right of prior occupation ; it was a part of the old estab- 
lished order of things; and Christianity had, until re- 
cently, as being the new-comer, been obliged to sus- 
tain the burden of proof. And so Christ seemed to 
Libanius that one who "in an evil hour burst in upon 
us like a drunken reveller." 2 

The condition of affairs here indicated reached a 
climax under the Emperor Constantius (337-361). 

Constantius [says Libanius 3 ], taking from his father a 
spark of evil, enlarged the thing into a mighty flame. Con- 
stantine, to be sure, stripped the gods of their wealth, but 
Constantius destroyed their temples, and, wiping out every 

1 Eunap., p. 92; Amm. Marc, xxii. 10, 7; xxv. 4, 20. A 
Christian sophist is mentioned in Lib., i. 526, 9. Of course there 
were Christian sophists at a later time in the school of Gaza. 

*i. 408, 15. 

8 Lib., iii. 436, 18. The policy of Constantius in restraint of 
liberal studies was perhaps less felt at Athens, in Egypt, and in 
Palestine than in certain other places, such as Constantinople, 
Nicomedia, and Antioch (Lib., iii. 439, 4). Still, Athens did not 
escape (Himer., or., iv. 3, 8, 9; xiii. 2; xiv. 6, 33; xxi. 1, 2), 






DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 113 

sacred law, put himself in the hands of those of whom we 
need not be reminded; and he extended the dishonor from 
religion to letters. . . . Philosophers and sophists and 
others whose lives were dedicated to Homer and the Muses 
he never on any occasion invited to the palace; he never saw 
one of them ; he never praised one of them ; he never spoke 
to them, or heard them speak; those whom he admired and 
kept about himself and made his advisers and teachers 
were barbarous men, certain pernicious eunuchs. He re- 
nounced his imperial duties in their favor, and though the 
acts went under his name, and the show of dress was his, 
the real power was theirs. They persecuted the study of 
letters in every way, humbling those who had any share in 
it arid exhorting one another to see that no man of wisdom 
secretly worked his way into the friendship of the em- 
peror. They introduced the pale-faced throng (i. e., 
Christians), the haters of the gods, the worshippers of 
tombs, whose proudest achievement it is to disparage 
Helios and Zeus and the fellow-rulers of Zeus. They 
brought back into line the secretaries, who were no better 
than their own slaves either in head or in heart. . . . The 
change was swift. The butcher's son, the fuller's son, the 
gutter-snipe, he who had thought it luxury to be free from 
want, suddenly appeared in grand style on a horse of 
grand appearance, with brow raised aloft, and attended 
by a throng of followers — the possessor of a large house, 
much land, flatterers, banquets, and gold ! If a rhetor did 
happen, by their gift, to hold some office, he had obtained 
it as the price of flattery. It would have been better 
for such a one, had he been wise enough to see it, to be- 
come even more abject than he was, than to be raised up 
through their means. The abominable and drunken 
eunuchs carried their outrage and insolence so far that 
they actually placed the secretaries in the seats of the 
provincial viceroys. And the excellent Constantius re- 
joiced at all this, as though he had been fortunate enough 
to find the one means that would preserve the state I 



114 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Education being in disgrace at the Court, students 
no longer turned to the study of letters, and the pro- 
fessors' classes fell off in numbers. 

Well might Libanius, under the circumstances, look 
upon the accession of Julian, who, he says, 1 "in a 
prince's station, loved wisdom more than any philoso- 
pher," as the dawn of a new life, for letters as well as 
for religion, and greet it with the wild and jubilant 
exultation of one beside himself for joy: "Then did I 
laugh," he says, 2 "and leap, and make and deliver 
speeches in my joy. Altars took again their wonted 
blood, smoke rolled heavenward the savor of the sacri- 
fice, gods were honored with festivals — festivals which 
few, old men they, remember ever to have seen — divi- 
nation recovered its license, and rhetoric its respect; 
Roman men took heart, and barbarians were defeated 
or threatened with defeat." 

But the joy of those who, like Libanius, looked for- 
ward to a complete restoration of the old order of things 
under the new emperor, was short-lived. On the 26th 
of June, 363, less than three years after he had been 
proclaimed emperor by his soldiers, Julian was killed 
by a Persian arrow while conducting a campaign in the 
East. Libanius's grief at this event was not less than 
his joy at the accession of Julian. "At first," he says, 3 
"I looked to the sword, feeling that any death, however 
harsh, would be less painful than life." And then this 
unavailing lament to the gods: 4 "Oh! ye gods and 
divinities, why did ye not fulfil the hopes we had placed 

»i. 81, 6. 2 i. 81, 9. »i. 91, 13. 

« i. 616, 13; cf. 507 ff. 






DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 115 

in you ? . . . Did he not raise up your altars ? Did he 
not build for you temples ? Did he not reverence mag- 
nificently gods and heroes, the air, heaven, earth, and 
sea, the springs and rivers ? Did he not make war upon 
those who had made war upon you ? Was he not more 
temperate than Hippolytus, more just than Radaman- 
thus, more sagacious than Themistocles, braver than 
Brasidas ? . . . And we fondly hoped that all the Per- 
sian land would become a part of the Roman domain, 
and would obey our laws, . . . and that Greek sophists 
in Susa would mould the Persian youth into orators." 

Only a short time before his death, Julian had sent 
envoys to Delphi to restore the oracle in that place, 
and these had returned with the prophetic response, 

etirare to) fia&iXfji, %dficu ireae haihaXos avkd. 
ov/ceri <I>ot/3o? e^et KaXvftav, ov /JuavTiSa 8d(f>VTjv t 
ov Trayav Xdkeovaav a7recr/3eT0 /ecu \d\op vSanp, 

which has been recently translated, 1 

"Tell ye the king: to the ground hath fallen the glori- 
ous dwelling; 
Now no longer hath Phoebus a cell, or a laurel pro- 
phetic; 
Hushed is the voiceful spring, and quenched the 
oracular fountain." 

After the death of Julian, the study of rhetoric began 
rapidly to decline. 3 At this time the most important 
Greek university centres were Athens, Constantinople, 
Nicomedia, Antioch, Berytus, and Alexandria, but prob- 

1 By Sandys, Hist. Clas. Schol., i. p. 347. The original is in 
Cedrenus, Hist, comp., i. 304, p. 532. 2 Lib., iii. 440, 15 ff. 



116 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ably no city of any size was without its active university 
life. Of the places named, Athens, Antioch, and, in a 
lesser degree, Nicomedia, were famous for their sophis- 
try, Constantinople and Berytus were celebrated for 
their schools of law, while philosophy found a home at 
Constantinople and Alexandria. At Alexandria there 
was also much activity in the line of medicine. The 
regulation of the universities continued from time to 
time to engage the attention of the different emperors, 
but Constantinople, under the special favor of the 
Court, grew and increased at the expense of the other 
centres. 1 

1 Sophists swarmed on land and sea (Themis., 341 d). The- 
mistius received his oratorical training in a remote city of the 
East, near the Phasis river (ib., 332 d). There were cleverer 
sophists at Constantinople than elsewhere, says Themistius 
(339 d; cf. 346 c). There was a chair of sophistry at Thessa- 
lonica in the time of Himerius (Himer., or., v. 9). Many places 
are mentioned by Libanius as being seats of sophistry (e. g., 
Ancyra, ep., 358, 1079, 1181; Cyzicus, ep., 441; Tarsus, ep., 343; 
Chalcis in Syria, iii. 158, 1 ff.; Tyre, ep., 930, etc.; Pamphylia, ep., 
781, etc.; Galatia, ep., 839; Palestine, ep., 875, etc.; Cappadocia, ep., 
1211). Syria was a hot-bed of sophistry (ib., ep., 1033). See 
also Schemmel, Neue Jahrb., 22, [p. 150. Philosophical studies 
seem to have increased somewhat in the second half of the 
century, perhaps at the expense of sophistry. Jovian endeavored 
to bring the subject back into favor (Themis., 63 c; Eunap., p. 
58). This Constantius had also claimed to do (Themis., 20 d). 
Alexandria is lauded as a seat of philosophical studies (Lib., ii. 
397, 5); Constantinople also (Themis., 20 d; Himer., or., vii. 13). 
According to Themistius, there were large schools of philosophy 
in Greece and Ionia, as well as at Constantinople, in the time of 
Theodosius (294 b). But, on the other hand, philosophy did not 
now court the market-place and the light of day, as it had done 
in the time of Socrates (ib., 341 d), while Themistius says that it 
was in bad repute (246 c), and also that it had thinned out and 
died away (341 d). For medicine, see Kuhn, Verf. d. r'dm. Reichs, 
i. pp. 88 Jf.; Bozzoni, / Medici ed il Diritto Romano; Pohl, De 
grcec. med. pub. See also pp. 142 ff. 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 117 

[ In the last half of the century, the persecution of the 
old faith became more and more severe. A series of 
edicts was put forth, forbidding the practice of all 
pagan rites, ordering the closing of the temples, and 
finally confiscating the property of the gods. No place 
was left for the old faith to rest in. Bands of black-robed 
votaries went through the land seizing and appropriat- 
ing to their own use and that of their orders the wealth 
of the pagan temples. 

But now this black-robed throng [says Libanius 1 ], who, 
though they try to conceal the fact by an artificial pallor, 
eat more gluttonously than elephants and by their fre- 
quent draughts tire out the patience of the congregation, 
which accompanies each potation with a chant — these 
black-robed votaries, Emperor, though the law forbids 
such practices, hurry to the temples, carrying beams and 
stones and iron bars; while some, not having these, are 
ready even with their hands and feet. Then, without the 
slightest compunction or restraint, they rip off roofs, tear 
down walls, drag down images, and overthrow altars; 
and the priests must either say nothing or lose their lives. 
... So they go through the land like mountain torrents, 
laying waste the country under pretext of attacking the 
temples. . . . They say that they are warring against the 
temples, but their warfare is really a means of private gain, 
both for those who attack the temples and for those who 
plunder the possessions of the poor inhabitants, carrying 
off their beasts and the contents of their storehouses. . . . 
Some even go farther than this, and appropriate the land, 
saying that So-and-So's land is consecrated ground; and 
many a landholder has been deprived of his estate under 
a false charge. Those who do these acts live in luxury and 
grow fat on the profit of other men's misfortunes — they 

1 ii. 164, 4; cf. Eunap., pp. 44 /. 



118 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

who reverence their god, as they say, by starving their 
bodies ! If those who have been robbed of their goods go 
to the city "pastor" — for so they call some worthless 
fellow — and complain, telling him of the injustice they 
have suffered, the "pastor" praises the wrong-doers, and 
drives the suppliants from his presence, giving them to 
understand that they are fortunate not to have suffered 
even worse. And yet, Emperor, these are of your Empire 
no less than the others, and are as much more valuable 
than the others as those who work are more valuable than 
those who do not; for these are the workers and the others 
are the drones. If these drones hear of an estate that 
contains anything that can be plundered, straightway that 
estate is engaged in unholy practices and is committing an 
unpardonable sin; a campaign must be instituted against 
it, and the inspectors immediately appear. "Campaign" 
is the name they give to this robbery, if robbery be not 
too weak a word to use — for robbers try to escape ob- 
servation and deny their deeds ; and, if you call them rob- 
bers, you insult them; but these men are proud of their 
actions and strive to outdo one another, giving instruction 
in the art to those who are unacquainted with it and pro- 
claiming themselves deserving of honor. 

And then, with less bitterness : l 

It is necessary, in matters of belief, to use persuasion, 
not force. For if one, being unable to accomplish one's 
purpose by the former, makes use of the latter, nothing is 
gained, though something seems to be. It is even said to 
be contrary to the Christian commandment to use force; 
while persuasion is therein recommended. Why, then, do 
you display such spite against the pagan temples? . . . 
Clearly, in so doing, you transgress your own laws. 

1 ii. 178, 2; cf. i. 562, 21. The same idea is expressed by The- 
mistius (68 a, b, 155 d, 156 c), and by Julian (424 B.) Libanius 
pleads for the preservation of the pagan temples as works of 
art (ii. 189, 11 if.). 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 119 

More and more also, as the century wore on, it be- 
came evident that, in competition with other studies, 
Greek letters and oratory were failing to hold their own. 
Under the blighting policy of the imperial Court at Con- 
stantinople, municipal freedom, which in earlier times 
had been the mainstay of a healthy national life, was 
greatly retrenched, and there was no longer room for 
the exercise of those professions for which sophistry had 
formed the preparation. Owing to the increased bur- 
densomeness of taxation, which fell in the first instance 
on the members of the municipal councils, these bodies 
constantly tended to decrease in size. Lack of public 
spirit took the place of former civic pride. 1 Again and 
again Libanius complains that students are going to 
Berytus and Rome to study law and Latin, and that, 
while sophistry has ceased to lead to anything profitable, 
the acquisition of culture for its own sake is a thing no 
longer desired or thought worth the striving for. There 
is for us almost a tragic interest in beholding this aged 
sophist, whose thoughts and interests all lay in the past 
of his race, and whose early days had coincided with the 
palmiest days of sophistry, compelled to look upon the 
decay of his religion and the degradation of his favorite 

1 Nowhere is the connection of the local councils and rhetoric 
more definitely set forth than in the oration in which Libanius 
urges the Emperor Theodosius to restore the former size and in- 
fluence of the councils. "This (i. e., rhetoric)," he says (ii. 587, 
15), "has fallen into decay and been ruined along with the 
councils, just as, when the councils throve, rhetoric was in honor 
and had many lovers. . . . With the understanding, then, that, 
in aiding the councils, you will also aid the books which are now 
cast aside, . . . bring it about that both recover their vigor — 
council-houses and schools." See p. 78, n. 1. 



{ 



120 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

studies. "Another misfortune," he says in one place, 1 
"a misfortune which shook the art to its foundation, 
was involved in the stampede from the Greek tongue 
and the migration to Italy of those who sought to con- 
verse in the Latin language. The Latin language, it 
was said, had become of more value than the Greek: 
with the one were power and riches, with the other was 
nothing but the language itself. I was not moved by 
the advice of those who urged me to give up teaching. 
Though I well knew to what a pass matters had come, 
I did not think it right to desert my post. I should not 
have deserted my mother had she fallen into misfortune, 
and Greek letters claimed my respect no less than my 
mother.' ' And again 2 : " More than ever now has Greek 
given place to Latin, so that I even fear that Greek will 
be banished altogether, through the agency of the law. 
Law and proclamation, however, have not brought 
about this thing, but the honor and power that become 
the portion of those who learn the Latin language. But 
the gods, who have given Greek letters, will attend to 
their victory, and will see that they regain the influence 
which once was theirs." Latin was still, at this time, 
the language of the Court at Constantinople, and law 
had become the stepping-stone to many civil offices. 
" Letters formerly drew young men from every quarter," 
says Libanius again, 3 "but now they are valued not at 

i i.133, 14. »i. 142, 21. 

3 i. 185, 17. Formerly the orator did not need to study law 
further than he studied it in his sophistical course; for the rest he 
hired the services of one versed in the legal books (c/. Mitteis, 
Reichsrecht u. Volksrecht, pp. 189 ff.). The case was different as 
early as 364 (Lib., ep., 1116, 1123, 1160), but even then the pro- 
spective law student often took a course in sophistry (Lib., ep., 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 121 

all. They are, it would seem, like rocks, whereon it is a 
madman that would cast his seed. . . . The harvest is 
reaped from other soil, from the Latin tongue, O Mis- 
tress Athene, and from the law. In former days, the ex- 
pert in law stood in court, with his roll in hand, looking 
at the speaker and waiting for the order to read; now even 
secretaries fill the very highest offices." Naturally, Liba- 
nius had no very great affection for the study of the law; 
" the law," he says in one place, 1 " a study for those who 
are slow of intellect." Another branch which had many 
vptaries in these later years was short-hand- writing. 3 

Libanius was himself the last of the great sophists, 
and when he was asked on his death-bed to whom he 
would wish to bequeath his school, he replied, it is said, 
to John (meaning John Chrysostom, the great Christian 
orator), if the Christians had not won him. 3 Libanius 
died in 394 or 395, at the age of eighty or eighty-one, 
and shortly after his death the tide of barbarian invasion 
rolled once more toward the shores of Greece. All 
through the last half of the fourth century the muttering 
thunder of the barbarian arms had been heard in the 
northern provinces of the Empire still more threaten- 
ingly than in the previous century, and now Alaric, at the 
head of his West Gothic hordes, swept down, through the 
pass of Thermopylae, and overran the country. Athens 
alone, of the cities of Greece, such is the tradition, was 

117, 1124; Procop., ep., 41, 117, 151, 153; cf. Lib., i. 214, 2; iii. 441, 
23 ff.\ Theodoret, ep., 10). So students went from Libanius's 
school to a school of medicine (Lib., ep., 1178). We thus have 
the inception of the graduate professional school (see p. 197). 

1 i. 214, 2. * Lib., iii. 440, 7. 

»Sozom., U. E.^ viii. 2; Cedrenus, i. p. 574. 



122 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

providentially saved. The aged Priscus, philosopher in 
the University of Athens, died at this time, from grief 
(it is intimated) at the sad lot of his fatherland ; and 
many other distinguished men either succumbed to the 
same fate or died a voluntary death ; while not a few 
fell at the hands of the Goths. 1 At about the same 
time, in 395, namely, Theodosius the Great died, and 
the Empire was divided between his two sons, Arcadius 
taking the East and Honorius the West. 

At the beginning of the next century we seem already 
in the midst of a new life. There were still sophists and 
other teachers of language at Athens, but their impor- 
tance was not what it had once been. The old glitter 
had gone from the study of sophistry. Many works of art 
had been removed by orders of the emperors, to decor- 
ate the new city by the Bosporus, and Athens, appar- 
ently, was in danger of becoming a quiet rural village. 2 
Let us hear the judgment of Synesius, the Neo-Plato- 
nist, and (later) Christian bishop, of Cyrene, on the 
Athens of this period: "I shall not only gain relief from 
my present trouble by this voyage," he writes to his 
brother before going to Athens, 3 "but I shall also free 
myself from the necessity of prostrating myself in the 
future, out of respect for their learning, before those who 

*Eunap., p. 67. 
, 2 Its decline in the fourth century is indicated by Eunapius, 
who says that Libanius chose Constantinople rather than Athens 
wherein to settle, because he did not wish to bury himself in a 
small city and decline with the city's decline (p. 97). Of Emesa, 
formerly the most thriving town of Phoenicia and a famous seat 
of learning, Libanius says, in the year 388, that it has been re- 
duced to a few houses, which are themselves on the way to decay 
(ep., 766). » Ep., 54. 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 123 

come from that city. These people differ in no way 
from us other mortals, at least as far as their understand- 
ing of Aristotle and Plato goes. But they walk among 
us like demi-gods among demi-asses (i. e. y mules), be- 
cause they have seen the Academy and the Lyceum, and 
the fresco-painted Hall, wherein Zeno taught — which 
is no longer fresco-painted, for the Governor has stripped 
the place of its paintings. ,, After he has seen Athens, 
he writes again to his brother thus 1 : "Cursed be the 
ship-captain that brought me to this spot. There is 
nothing in the Athens of to-day of any note, except the 
famous names of places. Just as, when a beast has been 
sacrificed, only the skin remains as a reminder of the 
living thing that was within, so here, now that philoso- 
phy has taken its departure from this spot, there is 
nothing left to do but to roam about and gaze in wonder 
at the Academy, and the Lyceum, and, forsooth! the 
Painted Stoa, which gave its name to the philosophy of 
Chrysippus, but is now no longer painted, since the 
Governor has carried off the pictures in which the 
Thasian Polygnotus stored his art. In our days it is 
Egypt which nourishes the seeds which she has received 
from Hypatia. Athens, once the home of wise men, is 
now famous only for her beehive-keepers. So it is with 
the pair of learned Plutarch-scholars, who fill their halls 
with students, not by the reputation of their lectures, 
but by the wine-jars of Hymettus. ,, 

We recognize in these outbursts the jealousy of an 
adherent of the rival school of Alexandria, 2 but we also 

i Ep., 136. 
! See Zumpt., Ueber den Bestand d. phil. Schul., p. 79. 



124 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

see that Athens, "holy Athens," as Synesius himself 
calls it, 1 was still, even in those days, the sacred hearth 
of learning, whose place no other city could usurp. 

An important seat of sophistry toward the end of the 
fifth century was Gaza, in Palestine, where taught the 
two sophists Procopius and Choricius, but other cities 
in the neighborhood enjoyed their sophistical schools, as 
Tyre, Csesarea, and even Alexandria. Alexandria had 
suffered in the third century (272), when the Emperor 
Aurelian laid waste much of the royal quarter of the 
city, and again late in the fourth century (391), when, 
under Theodosius, the temple of Serapis, where was 
stored the smaller of the two libraries which the city 
originally possessed, was destroyed ; but men of learning 
never ceased to flock thither, and in the fifth century she 
was prominent, not only by reason of her philosophical 
school, but also through her studies in mathematics and 
astronomy. Ajitioch and Nicomedia had seen their best 
days in the fourth century, but at Antioch at least there 
was still in the fifth century a school of sophistry. 
Csesarea in Cappadocia was in the fifth century the seat 
of 'grammatical' and rhetorical studies, while at An- 
cyra, in Galatia, there were schools of rhetoric and phi- 
losophy. Berytus was famous for its school of law; 
and, lastly, the University of Constantinople, put on a 
new basis in 425 by Theodosius II, offered courses in 
rhetoric and ' grammar' (in two languages, Greek and 
Latin), in law, and in philosophy. 2 

1 Ep., 54. 

2 For Gaza, see Croiset, Hist. lit. grec, v. 984, and the works 
of Procopius and Choricius. For Antioch, Tyre, and Caesarea 
in Palestine, see Chor., p. 6. For Ancyra, see Mommsen, The 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 125 

At this time, when the study of rhetoric was falling 
into disfavor and was becoming more and more a mat- 
ter of technical detail, Neo-Platonism at Athens reached 
its stage of greatest prosperity. This doctrine, which 
pretended to be simply a development of the ideas con- 
tained in the writings of Plato, but really contained ele- 
ments from the doctrines of many schools, had started at 
Alexandria toward the beginning of the third century. 
The immediate predecessor of the real line of Neo- 
Platonists was Ammonius Saccas, and under his pupil, 
Plotinus, and Plotinus's pupil, Porphyry, the Neo- 
Platonic philosophy was established, in the last half of 
the third century, at Rome. At the beginning of the 
fourth century it was transferred by Iamblichus to 
Syria, where it assumed more and more the character 
of a religion, tinged with Eastern mysticism. The 
pupils of Iamblichus were numerous, and they spread 
the doctrine into many parts of the Greek world. It 
gained a footing at Athens about the middle of the 
fourth century, and rose to great favor in the next cen- 
tury, under Plutarch, Syrianus, and Proclus. In the 
meantime, another line of professors was expounding 
the doctrine in the Alexandrian school, prominent 
among whom were Theon and his daughter, the beauti- 
ful and accomplished Hypatia, she who was afterward 
killed by an infuriated mob of Alexandrian Christians. 

Neo-Platonism at this time represented all the philoso- 
phy of the age, and it was a religion as well as a phi- 
losophy. Those who were opposed to Christianity and 

Provinces of the Roman Empire (trans.), i- p. 342, and Lib., ep. t 
358, 1079, 1181. See also pp. 142 ff. 



126 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

were attached to the old culture and education and the 
old traditions arrayed themselves in general on the side 
of this faith. The Neo-Platonic school at Athens passed 
for the lineal descendant and legitimate successor of the 
old Academy of Plato, and enjoyed the endowment of 
the Academy. 1 But, as time went on, it became more 
and more apparent that the continuation of this last 
stronghold of the pagan faith in an otherwise Chris- 
tianized world was a thing that the Christian emperors 
could not long endure. Edict after edict was put forth, 
directed against the old religion, and making it harder 
and harder for the faithful few who remained to continue 
in its practice. The death-blow finally came in a rescript 
of Justinian of the year 529, forbidding the teaching of 
all philosophy and the expounding of the law at Athens; 
the study of jurisprudence in the East was hereafter to 
be confined to Constantinople and Berytus. All grants 
of public funds made by previous emperors in the in- 
terests of learning were withdrawn, and the endowment 
of the philosophical school at Athens was confiscated. 3 

1 For the endowment and income of the Academy in the fifth 
century A. D., see the quotation from Damascius's Life of Isidor 
in Suidas, s. v. Plato. The same is given in slightly different 
form in Photius, Bibl., cod. 242, p. 346 a. 

2 The closing of the schools at Athens is mentioned by Malalas 
and Procopius. The story has given rise to some discussion, and 
I cannot do better than quote here Professor Bury's note to 
Gibbon's History, vol. iv, ch. xl, p. 266: "The suppression of the 
schools by Justinian has been unsuccessfully called in question 
by Paparrigopulos and Gregorovius. . . . The authority of 
Malalas is good for the reign of Justinian. . . . His words are: 
(Justinian) 0e<nrt(ras irpbara^v eire/x\f/ev £v 'Afl^vcus /ceXe&ras fxrjdiva 
didd<rK€Lv <pCko<To<plav fxrjTe v6fiifxa £l-r)ye?<rdai k.t.X. (p. 449, ed. Bonn). 
Justinian had already taken stringent measures against pagans. 
... It is not difficult to guess what happened. The edicts against 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 127 

Seven philosophers, the last remnant of the Athenian 
University, refusing to conform to the new order of 
things, left Greece a few years later and took up their 
residence in a foreign land, Persia, but, finding their 
surroundings there uncongenial, they secured from the 
Roman Emperor, through the intercession of the Per- 
sian King, permission to return to their native country 
and to remain in undisturbed possession of their ancient 
faith. Let us hear the words of the historian Agathias on 
this last event connected with the University of Athens ■ : 

j Damascius the Syrian, Simplicius the Cilician, Eulamius 
the Phrygian, Priscian the Lydian, Hermeias and Diogenes 
of Phoenicia, and Isidor of Gaza, the flower ... of the 
philosophers of our age, being dissatisfied with the new 

paganism, strictly interpreted, involved the cessation of Neopla- 
tonic propagandism at Athens. The schools went on as before, 
and in a month or two the proconsul of Achaia would communi- 
cate with the Emperor on the subject and ask his pleasure. The 
irp6<rTa£is mentioned by Malalas was the rescript to the proconsul. 
At the same time the closing of the schools was ensured by 
withdrawing the revenue, as we may infer from Procopius, Anecd. 
C. 26, d\\& teal toiJs larpofa re teal di8affKd\ovt tQv iXevdeplwv 
t(ov dvaynaluiv arepeiffdai TreirolTjKe. rds re ydp triTi^ms At ol irpbrepov 
/3c/3aaiXcuK6Tes £k rod 8rip.o<xlov xop777e?<r0at rotirois 8tj tois iiriTtiSeup.aai.v 
%Ta£av, tciiJtcis dr) oDtos d<pel\ero ird<ras. It should be observed that the 
teaching of law was expressly forbidden. The study of jurispru- 
dence was to be limited to the schools of Constantinople and 
Berytus. The statement of Malalas that Justinian sent his Code, 
A. D. 529, to Athens and Berytus, is remarkable, and has been 
used, by Gregorovius to throw doubt on the other statement of 
Malalas, by Hertzberg to support it. We may grant Gregorovius 
that there was no solemn formal abolition of the schools, but there 
is no reason to question that they were directly and suddenly sup- 
pressed through a rescript to the proconsul. ..." For the course 
of study pursued in the Neo-Platonic school, see Schemmel, Neue 
Jahrb., 22, pp. 505-513. Grammar and rhetoric, Schemmel holds, 
were in some measure still taught at Athens (p. 513). 
1 ii. 30. 



128 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

faith which had spread through the world, thought that the 
kingdom of Persia would be a far better place to live in. 
For they believed, with the majority of their countrymen, 
that the ruling power in Persia was most just and such as 
Plato would have had, a union of philosophy and kingly rule, 
while the people, they thought, were in the highest degree 
temperate and orderly. . . . Taking these popular reports 
to be true and encouraged by them, and being, further, 
owing to their refusal to conform to the established order 
at home, prevented from living in safety in Greece, they 
straightway wandered forth, and settled in a strange and 
foreign land, there to live for the rest of their days. At first, 
finding those in power overbearing and beyond measure 
arrogant, they abominated them and called them all man- 
ner of names. And after that they saw that house-breakers 
and thieves existed in great numbers, some of whom were 
caught, while others escaped; and every kind of injustice 
was done. . . . For all these reasons the philosophers were 
distressed, and grieved that they had left their homes. 
Then, when they conversed with the king, and found to 
their disappointment that, while he made some pretence 
to a liking for philosophy, he knew nothing at all of the 
deeper learning, and was firmly wedded to other beliefs 
than their own, . . . they straightway departed, and, 
though Chosroes admired them and would have had them 
remain, they continued, thinking it better to step foot once 
more in Roman dominions and then, if need be, die, than 
to remain in Persia and be the recipients of all manner 
of gifts. . . . This good, however, they gained from their 
sojourn: . . . they were able from that day forth to live 
according to their pleasure. For, the Romans and the Per- 
sians being at the time on the point of concluding a treaty, 
Chosroes made it one of the terms of the treaty, that the 
philosophers should be allowed to return to their homes 
and live for the rest of their days in peace, without being 
obliged to profess a faith which they did not believe or 
change their ancestral religion. 



DECLINE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 129 

The seven philosophers, on their return, settled in 
Alexandria, but the spirit of Hellenism was dead in the 
world at large, and the University of Athens did not 
again in ancient times open its doors. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 
AND NUMBER 

This Athens — the Athens of Hadrian and Antoninus 
Pius and Marcus Aurelius, the Athens of Herodes At- 
ticus and the other great sophists and philosophers who 
made the fame and established the traditions of the 
University in the second century A. D. — what was it 
like ? what was its appearance and what its life ? Brill- 
iant, indeed, in outer aspect must it have been, for, 
besides the great number of works of art which had 
been preserved from earlier times, there were now the 
many magnificent buildings erected, or in process of 
erection, through the generosity of Hadrian and the 
other emperors and Herodes Atticus. All Greece was 
a museum of beautiful works, and Athens, according 
to the orator, the "eye of Greece." l 

With the establishment of the Roman supremacy 
throughout the Mediterranean lands, the importance of 
Greece, politically and commercially, had decreased. 
Landed property had tended to fall more and more into 
the hands of large proprietors, and the rural population 

itoQ ttjs 'EXXdSos 6<t>0a\fiov, Lib., i. 531, 9. Cf. ib., ep., 866: 
rhv d<rT4pa 8t rbv 'EXXdSos tt\v 'Adrivaiiav ir6\iv • Cic, Pro leg. Man., 
5 (of Corinth) : totius Grcecim lumen; Hegesias in Photius, Bibl., 
cod. 250, p. 446 b. 

130 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 131 

had, as a consequence, flocked to the towns. Many 
foreigners also came to make their home at Athens. 
Still, the city, notwithstanding this increased population, 
was never, even in a slight degree, another Rome. It 
was distinctly a university town, and its teachers and 
students were among its most important assets. " Empty 
Athens" (vacuas . . . Athenas), as we have noted, 
Horace had said in a previous century, contrasting the 
rural quiet of this city with the noise and bustle of 
Rome, and probably the epithet well characterized that 
partial silence, so charming a feature of some European 
cities of to-day, which forms the atmosphere of a town, 
once bustling and politically important, but now, in the 
ripeness of its age, resting in the memories of its past 
and its consciousness of present wisdom and dignity. 
Let us hear Lucian, following the description given by 
the philosopher Nigrinus, discourse on the Athens of 
his day and the ways of her people: 1 

Nigrinus began by praising Greece and the men at 
Athens, saying that these are bred from their youth to be 
friends of philosophy and poverty, and that they look upon 
no man with favor, either native or foreigner, who tries to 
introduce among them ways of luxury and wantonness. 
If any one comes among them who is thus disposed, they 
try quietly to change his ways, and, working upon him by 
degrees, mould him to a purer manner of life. He cited 
the case of a man — one of the very wealthy — who, com- 
ing to Athens with a large retinue of followers, made a dis- 
gusting display of fine clothes and gold, and thought to fill the 
whole town with envy and amazement. Everybody looked 
upon the poor wretch as one in misfortune, and they took 

1 Nigr., 12-14. 



132 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

him in hand to train him — not harshly, or directly dissuading 
him, for the city was free and he could live as he pleased. 
But when he appeared in the gymnasia or the baths and 
made himself obnoxious by jostling with his attendants, 
or crowding into a corner, those whom he met, some one 
would say in an undertone, pretending not to be observed 
and as though not directing his speech at him, "He's 
afraid of being slain while taking his bath. Strange! for 
there's peace in the bath-house. He has no need of an 
army here." And he, hearing what was the truth, would 
take the lesson to heart. His Dolly Varden dress and his 
long purple robes they caused him to drop, by ridiculing, 
with much wit, their gay colors. "Spring's come," they 
would say, or "Where'd that peacock come from?" or 
"Perhaps they are his mother's," or something of that sort. 
They ridiculed other things about him in the same way — 
the number of his rings, his carefully arranged hair, the 
extravagance of his life — so that little by little he was 
trained to a more sober way of living. . . . Such praise 
Nigrinus gave to the people, and he also spoke in admira- 
tion of the free and democratic spirit which reigned among 
them, and of the quiet and restful life that was found at 
Athens. He showed to me how thoroughly this life is in 
accord with the teachings of philosophy, and how it is able 
to guard a pure and upright spirit in the breast, being, for 
the man of serious principles, who has been brought up to 
despise riches and lives in accordance with nature, the very 
best life. 

We breathe in these words the air of intellectual free- 
dom and academic peace, and that such were charac- 
teristics of the Athens of those days, is clear not alone 
from this passage. Proclus of Naucratis, we are told, 
left his home and went to live at Athens, "because he 
enjoyed the quiet that was there." ■ Aulus Gellius is 

» Philos., 603. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 133 

fond, on occasion, of dwelling on the remembrances of 
his happy student days at Athens. Sometimes, he tells 
us, 1 in the long, hot days of summer, when the schools 
were closed and the sophist ceased to drone, Herodes 
Atticus would invite a party of friends, mostly students, 
to his suburban villa, Cephisia, and there, amid pleasant 
shades and murmuring streams and walks that were 
cool and refreshing, entertain them with a banquet and 
social or learned discourse. Again, it is the philosopher 
Taurus, who sits at his door conversing with his students 
after lecture, 2 or goes to visit them when he hears that 
they are sick,* or invites them to a modest repast at his 
house. 4 

What a feature of the times seem these banquets, where 
learned discourse mingled with good cheer! A famous 
one, and doubtless the prototype of many, was that de- 
scribed by Plutarch in the Ninth Symposiac. The 
occasion was the festival of the Muses at Athens. Am- 
monius, the distinguished philosopher, who, as supreme 
magistrate of the city, had general supervision of the 
schools, held an examination of those students who were 
studying 'grammar/ geometry, rhetoric, and music, in 
the gymnasium called the Diogeneion. Then he in- 
vited the most famous professors of the city to a banquet. 
Here met many of the old student friends of Plutarch, 
and here the wit outrivalled the viands. 

In this Athens, brilliant in outward appearance, but 
quiet and rural in its atmosphere, we have to imagine, 
as the most important feature, that which gave life and 

»i. 2. 



8 ii. 2. 3 xii. 5. 

' vii. 13; xvii. 8, 20; cf. iii. 19. 



134 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

color to the rest, the University. The disputes between 
members of the different schools of philosophy, the 
jealous bickerings of sophists and philosophers, the 
rivalry and competition that ensued, when it became 
known that a vacancy had occurred in one of the much- 
coveted chairs, the grand displays of eloquence, to 
which the whole town flocked, the appearance in public 
of some famous sophist, clad in a gay and jewelled robe, 
or driving, like Adrian, 1 to his lectures in a chariot with 
silver trappings, and returning, the centre of a throng 
of young men gathered from all quarters of the Greek 
world, and, finally, the various companies of students, 
betraying by their faces and their dress their different 
nationalities — all these features gave a most distinctive 
character to the town. 

We saw, in an earlier chapter, 3 that when Marcus 
Aurelius, by granting to the professors of philosophy 
and sophistry at Athens fixed salaries, gave to the Uni- 
versity an official standing, he assigned to the honored 
sophist, Herodes Atticus, the duty of making the ap- 
pointments to the philosophical chairs, while he reserved 
to himself the privilege of filling the chair of sophistry. 3 
This arrangement, so far as concerns the sophistical 
chair, continued up to the time when the whole mechan- 

■ Philos., 587. 2 P. 93. 

^~^ a That is, the imperial chair. The appointment to the munic- 
ipal chair (if municipal chair it was) would probably be made by 
the fiovK-f). Cf. the case of Nicostratus at Rhodes (C. /. (?., xii. 1, 
No. 83), and the case of Soterus at Ephesus (Kaibel, Ep. Gr., No. 
877a). 'Grammarians' were also appointed by the council, and 
both ' grammarians ' and sophists could be deposed if they did not 
perform their duties satisfactorily (Cod. Jus. t x. 53, 2, edict of 
Gordian). 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 135 

ism of the University was thrown into disorder by the 
confusion occasioned by the inroads of the barbarians 
and the internal distress of the Empire, in the third 
quarter of the third century. 1 

^ /With the philosophical chairs, however, the case was 
different. Herodes Atticus died about 179, hardly more 
than three years, if so long as» that, after he had been 
put in charge of the philosophical department of the 
University. After his death, the duty of examining the 
candidates and making the appointments in this de- 
partment was assigned to a ' board of electors/ the 
constitution of which is not quite certain. The mem- 
bers of this board are called by Lucian " the best, the 
oldest, and the wisest of those in the city," but whether 
they were members of the philosophical schools, or sim- 
ply representative citizens, or whether they formed a 
permanent board or were chosen for the occasion, is not 
made clear. 3 The rivalry of the different candidates, 
on the day when an examination, preliminary to the 
filling of a vacancy, was to be held, was doubtless in- 
tense, and we may trust Lucian to make the most of 

• See Philos., 591, 593, 622, 623. 

2 Eunuch., 2: ol Apiffroi ical irpeafMraroi kclI aocfxhraToi tQ>v iv 
Tfl 7r6\et- 3: ^^0v tQv aplaruv. They seem to be the same body- 
as the probatissimi in Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 7 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 8): 
exceptis his, qui a probatissimis approbati ab hac debent colluvione 
secerni. Zumpt (Ueber den Bestand d. phil. Schul., p. 52) con- 
jectures that they were members of the /3oi/\^, or Areopagus, but 
in Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 5 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 7): iubeo, quisquis docere 
vult, . . . iudicio ordinis probatus decretum curialium mereatur, 
optimorum conspirante consensu, they are distinct from the local 
council. Cf. Diogenes 's indictment of Lucian in Luc, Pise, 26: 
6 6$ roiis apicrrovs avyicaKGjp, . . . pLeydXy rrj (pwprj 8iayope6ei kcikwj 
IIXdTwva k.t.X.; also Lib., i. 66, 1; Luc, De domo, 3; ib., Did. 
mort., 9, 2 and 4. 



136 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the humor of such an occasion. He describes to us in 
one of his pieces 1 an amusing scene of this sort. A 
vacancy has occurred in the Peripatetic school, one of 
the two professors having died, and several candidates 
present themselves in competition for the coveted place. 
The judges are, as has been said, " the best, the oldest, 
and the wisest of those in the city, men before whom one 
would be ashamed even to say anything out of order, 
much more to act in the disgraceful way in which these 
men acted." Two of the candidates are superior to the 
rest and make the decision in the end doubtful. Both 
are thoroughly familiar with the tenets of the school, 
both are orthodox Aristotelians in their belief, and both 
prove themselves proficient in the art of discussing. 
Finally, when each has shown himself in these respects 
the equal of the other, they turn to personalities, and 
carry things so far that the judges, unable to decide be- 
tween them, refer the matter in the end to the emperor 
at Rome. 

We see from this piece what the qualifications re- 
quired of a candidate for a chair of philosophy at this 
time were — familiarity with the tenets of his sect, or- 
thodoxy in his philosophical belief, and, apparently, 
some facility in the use of language. 2 The 'board of 

1 The Eunuchus. 

2 Eunuch., 4: tA p.h o$v tQv \6yuv (the tenets of the sect) 
irporiydivurro avrois Kal ttjp 4p.ireiplav etcdrepos rQsv doyp-druv iweStdeucTO 
Kal &ri rod ' ApiffTortXovs Kal t&v iicdpcp Sokoijvtup etx^ T< >- Some 
facility in the use of language seems to be implied in 9 : rov U oi 
<rupMTiKT]v \4yovros elvai ttjv Kplaiv, dXX* 6.\kt)v ipvxv* Ka ^ T V* yv&PV* 
i^raffiv SeTv ylyvcadai Kal ttjs t&v Soyfidruv iTriaT^fJLrjs, and in 13: 
ei>l-alp.T)v Slv oi rty yv<I)p.r)v ov8£ ttjv yXurrav (eTolp.rjp) . . . is 
<pCkoao<plav exet*. Not all philosophers, however, could speak with 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 137 

electors ' may, however, have been competent to make 
the appointment on any basis on which it chose, and the 
moral fitness of the candidate no doubt often came into 
serious consideration. Pamphilus and Lucinus, indeed, 
the two interlocutors of this dialogue — voicing therein, 
we may believe, the sentiment of Lucian — agree that, 
if they were judges, they should considerthe character of 
the candidate first of all. We are reminded of the edict 
of Valentinian and Valens x of the year 369, wherein it is 
provided that all who have adopted the garb of philoso- 
phers, without being entitled thereto, shall, if found in a 
foreign city, be transported back to their homes; "ex- 
cepting only," continues the edict, "such as have been 
approved by the best and deserve to be separated by 
them and set aside from this worthless throng; for it is 
base, if a man who professes to endure the blows of 
fortune cannot endure the burdens of his citizenship." 
In other edicts also fitness of the candidate from a moral 
point of view was made a prerequisite to appointment 
or to the receiving of a license to teach. Thus, an edict 
of Julian, 2 dated 362, requires that all professors and 

fluency (Luc, Jup. trag., 27; Themis., 261 c, 342 b), but more 
and more, as time went on, even the philosophers came under the 
sophistic influence, and eloquence came to be an accomplishment 
of the philosopher (cf. Themis., 328 ff.). Themistius may be taken 
as an example — Libanius (ep., 703) says that he taught eloquence 
as well as philosophy — and compare Lib., i. 385, 3, and Eunap., p. 
112. If philosophers are included in the edicts Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 5 
(Cod. Jus., x. 53, 7) and 3, 6, eloquence is specifically named as a 
qualification required of the teacher of philosophy. See p. 138, n. 1. 

1 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 7 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 8). 

2 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 5 (Cod. Jus., x, 53, 7). A similar requirement 
is contained in an edict of Valentinian and Valens of the year 364 
(Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 6), and in another of Theodosius of the year 425 
(Cod. Th., vi. 21, 1 [Cod. Jus., xii. 15, 1]). 



138 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

other teachers of liberal studies shall excel, first in moral 
character, and then in eloquence. It is to be noted that 
these edicts applied apparently, not alone to philoso- 
phers, but to teachers of all liberal studies, including 
teachers of the law. 1 

We also see from this piece of Lucian that, in case the 
* board* was unable to decide between the candidates, 
the matter was referred to the emperor. It would seem 
from a passage in Alexander of Aphrodisias, 2 who was 
Head of the Peripatetic school in the time of Septimius 
Severus, that the announcement of the appointment was 
in any case made by the emperor. So, at a later time, 
in the case of the sophists, the call was sometimes made 
by the emperor, after the selection had been made by 
the council. 3 

After the reorganization of the Empire under Dio- 
cletian and Constantine at the beginning of the fourth 
century, the philosophical schools fell into the back- 



1 Philosophers are not specifically mentioned in Cod. Th., xiii. 
3, 5 and 6, and vi. 21, 1, but they would seem to be included under 
the expressions magistros studiorum doctoresque (xiii. 3, 5), si qui 
erudiendis adolescentibus vita pariter et facundia idoneus erit (xiii. 
3, 6), and quicunque alii ad id doctrinae genus, quod unusquisque 
profitetur (vi. 21, 1). See, however, Dig., 1. 13, 1. Cf. Eumen., 
Pro rest, scol., 14. In inscriptions, morals and eloquence are often 
mentioned together; e.g., ^E<prj/x. d/>x-, 1883, p. 20: aperrjs tve<a teal 
\6yuv C. I. G., 4679: ivl avbpayo.dlq.Kal \6yois- C. I. A., iii. 769: 
did re T7j!> iv T(p iiriTrjdevfxaTi virepoxyv Kal ttjv irepl ra ijdrj <jtp.vQTr)Ta 
(see Wilhelm, Jahresb. d. bsterr. arch. Inst., 2, 1899, p. 275). 

2 De fato, 1 : oD (Aristotle) rrjs <pi\o<ro<pLas irpot<rTap.ai virb rrjt 
ifiertpas p.aprvplas 5i5d<r/caXoj avrijs K€KT}pvy/xivos • though this may 
have been a case of appeal, in which Alexander was actually ap- 
pointed by the emperor. Or does Alexander mean simply that 
he was appointed by authority delegated by the emperor? 

3 See p. 140. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 139 

ground, 1 and the method of appointment to the chairs 
of sophistry was changed. The emperor, though he 
was, of course, at all times the court of last appeal, no 
longer regularly and on every occasion exercised the 
right of selection. Though the method of appointment, 
in this later period, may not have been, for all places 
and for all times, the same, in general the municipal 
councils, acting under the authority, expressed or im- 
plied, of the local magistrates, seem to have been com- 
petent to determine the personnel of the various univer- 
sities. Thus, in Greece, the proconsul, who had his seat 
at Corinth, acted as a sort of curator to the University at 
Athens. 2 He could appoint and he could depose, and 
when, as was often the case, the students got into a 
fight with one another or with the townsmen, or in any 
other way broke the peace, he summoned them to ap- 
pear before his tribunal, to answer for their conduct. 3 
But, though the control of the University of Athens was 
at times thus interfered with by action of the proconsul, 
the independence of the council was in general re- 



1 Appointments in the Neo-Platonic school at Athens in the 
fifth century were made by members of the school or by the out- 
going Head (Hertzberg, Gesch. Griech., iii. p. 532). 

2 Cf. Himer., or., xiv. 37. See also Hertzberg, Gesch. Griech., 
iii. p. 85. 

3 A celebrated case of this sort was the hand-to-hand contest 
that took place between the students of Apsines and those of 
Julian (Eunap., p. 69). On another occasion the students be- 
came so unruly and caused such disturbance in the town that the 
proconsul, holding the professors to account for the conduct of 
their students, deposed three of the sophists and appointed three 
others in their stead, among whom was Libanius (Lib., i. 19, 11; 
176, 13). The proconsul could also forbid a professor to hold 
public displays (Himer., or., viii. 2, 3). 



140 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

spected. 1 It is probable that a similar state of affairs 
existed at most of the other university centres. Some- 
times the call to a professorship came from the com- 
munity itself, and was expressed in the form of a decree 
passed by the local council and signed, or otherwise 
approved, by the emperor or the emperor's representa- 
tive in the province. 3 At other times, upon a simple 
request of the community, the emperor or the em- 
peror's representative issued an edict, calling upon a 
professor to accept a certain chair. 3 Naturally the 
emperor would be more apt to interfere in educational 
matters at Constantinople than in smaller cities in 
which there was no Court. At Antioch and some other 
places the local council, acting by itself, seems to have 
been, under ordinary circumstances, competent to dis- 
pose of the fortunes of its teachers, 4 but there is no doubt 

1 The proconsul on one occasion urged the council to extend a 
call to Libanius (Lib., i. 58 and 59; 73, 12; cf. 176, 22, and iii. 457, 5). 
This is stated to have been the first time that a sophist was called 
to Athens from without to teach; sometimes students stayed on 
at Athens year after year, waiting for an opening that never 
came (ib., i. 21, 6). Libanius refused to accept the call, though he 
recognized the honor done him (ib., i. 59 and 60). Libanius was 
also called to Egypt by the council and the prefect (ib., ep., 1050; 
i. 176, 22). Cf. ib., iii. 204, 5: ^-ncpla-fxart. Kal yvib/xr). 

1 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 5 (if it is to be applied to the official appoint- 
ments); cf. Cod. Jus., x. 53, 7. Libanius was called to Nicomedia 
by a formal vote, passed, by special permission of the governor 
of Bithynia, after petition made by the citizens (Lib., i. 36, 13). 
See preceding note. 

s Lib., i. 27, 3; cf. 54, 1. Even in the second century an embassy 
was sometimes sent to the emperor to beg for the appointment 
of this or that professor (Philos., 591). Proaeresius recovered his 
chair at Athens through the intervention of the emperor (Eunap., 
p. 80). 

* At Antioch (Lib., ii. 213, 12; ep., 209, 453, 825). At Caesarea 
(ib., ii. 220, 20). At Apamea (ib., ep., 1449). At Cyzicus (ib., 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 141 

that in these cases also the emperor or the emperor's 
representative would at any time have felt himself at lib- 
erty to interfere. 1 In fact, it is evident from many 
passages in Libanius that intrigue and politics played 
at times no unimportant part in determining the soph- 
ist's lot. Sometimes, notably on occasion of the ap- 
pointment of the Head of the rhetorical school at Athens, 
a rhetorical contest was instituted among the various 
candidates. 8 

Oftentimes a single speech was sufficient to establish 
the reputation of a sophist and insure his appointment 
to an excellent position. 3 Popularity had its dangers, 
however. If a professor received a call, voiced by the 
emperor, it was generally wise for him to accept. 4 
Release from service or change of position was also, if 
the professor was popular and his services were desired, 
often difficult to obtain. Libanius tells us that, after 
he had set up a school at Constantinople and the stu- 

ep., 441). And see ib., ii. 80, where the power (in ordinary cases) 
of the local council is emphasized: papvrdTrj 54 ol Kal ij pov\i] 
84<nroiva iirlKeiTat. ypdp.p.acnv d\iyois atpeiv re avrbv Kal Kadaipeiv %x 0V(Ta 
arp4<peiv re Sirrj jSoi/Xoito t&s iiceipov tvxols 4Kftd\\eip re, el tovto apiaKoi, 
Kal TrXijdos avriTe'x vuv 4yKadiardvai &\\a re p.iKpd SoKovvra eivai 
fieydXrjv <f>4povra ttjp Xtiirrjv. But it is stated in what follows that the 
sophist may be able to evade the action of the council if he can 
obtain the favor of the emperor or of a magistrate. Eumenius 
was appointed professor at Autun, in Gaul, near the end of the 
third century by the emperor (Eumen., Pro rest, scol., 14). 

1 See preceding note, and Lib., ii. 601, 8. Just after Libanius's 
removal to Antioch there came an edict from the emperor calling 
him back to Constantinople (ib., ep., 407, 1242). 

* Eunap., p. 79. See, for this passage, p. 142, n. 3, and p. 153. 
An examination on the two subjects, moral character and elo- 
quence, seems to be implied in Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 5 (Cod. Jus., x. 
63, 7) and 3, 6. Cf. Augustin., Confess., v. 13. 

» E. g., Lib., i. 27, 5. • Lib., i. 20, 4; 54, 1; 126, 9; 177, 9. 



142 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

dents had begun to flock to his lectures, the emperor, 
fearing that he might wish to transfer his residence to 
Antioch, his home, issued a decree enjoining his stay 
in the capital. 1 At a later time, when Libanius actually 
undertook to leave Constantinople and to remove to 
Antioch, he found it necessary to engage in an endless 
amount of wire-pulling. First, he interested several 
physicians in his case. These were to depose that the 
climate of Constantinople was bad for his head — he 
had been troubled from his youth with vertigo and 
headache — while that of Antioch was beneficial. 
Next, the mayor of the city was to agree to accept this 
deposition without question. Finally, an influential 
man at Court was worked upon, by an appeal to his 
feeling of self-importance, to support the physicians' 
statement and to add his own prayers thereto for 
Libanius's release. The manoeuvre was partly success- 
ful: Libanius received a temporary leave of absence, 
which was, however, afterward made permanent.* 

The number of official sophists at Athens in the 
fourth century is uncertain. There seem to have been 
at least three, and there may possibly have been more. 
Of these, one held a position superior to the positions 
of the others, and was known as the Head of the school.' 

■ i. 29, 11. 

1 i. 66, 8; ep., 394a, 395. Even for a temporary leave of ab- 
sence of four months during the summer, he had to sue for the 
emperor's consent (ib., i. 61, 14). 

3 An important passage for determining the number of official 
sophists at Athens is Eunap., pp. 79 ff.: ws 5^, airtkdbvTot 'Iou- 
\tavov k. t. X. (translated, p. 154, below). The passage has been 
differently understood. Zumpt (Ueber den Bestand d. phil. 
Schul., p. 56) and Hertzberg (Gesch. Griech., iii. p. 328) under- 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 143 

At Constantinople, provision was made at the beginning 
of the next century for three Latin and five Greek 
chairs of sophistry. There was also at least one official 
' grammarian ' at Athens, while at Constantinople there 
were, at the beginning of the fifth century, ten Latin 

stood it to mean that there was a preliminary examination of all 
the candidates, at which six were chosen to compete in a further 
contest for the chair, while according to the view of Bemhardy, 
K. O. M tiller (see Zumpt, p. 56, n. 2), and Schlosser (Univ., Stud, 
u. Prof. d. Griech. in Archiv fur Gesch. u. Lit., i. p. 219), there was 
no nomination and no contest to be followed by an appointment, 
but simply an appointment and a struggle for ascendancy after- 
ward. Eunapius's language, though not wholly free from am- 
biguity, seems tolerably clear. It is evident that there arose at 
Athens after Julian's death a question about the succession to 
the emoluments of some position connected with sophistry (tAs 
'Adrjvas eixev epws ttjs diadoxv* T & v ^ 7r ^ T0 ' s \6yois irXeoveKTrj/xdruv)', 
it is also evident that a large number of candidates presented 
themselves, each resting his claim to the right of appointment 
on the statement that he held the supremacy in the sophistical 
field (irapayytWovai fit? iirl t$ Kpdrei ttjs <ro<pt<rTiKTjs rroWol 
k.t.X.). The matter to be decided, then, before the succession to 
the emoluments could be conferred, was which of all the claim- 
ants was the strongest. Six passed muster and were chosen to 
compete (x €l P 0T0V0 ^ VTai ^ 8oKt/xa<rdtvTe$ dirdaau Kplffeat) — four 
as being likely candidates, two simply to fill up the number; 
"for there had to be at Athens, according to the Roman law (or 
custom), a number of speakers and a number of auditors" 
(25et ybp iroWoits elVcu, Kara rbv vbfiov rbv 'P«fiai'/c6i', ' Ad^vrjtri rods 
p.iv \4yopTas, Toi/t 8t duotiovras). The last words may offer 
some difficulty, but they seem to mean that the Roman law or 
custom required that the appointment should be made only 
from a large number of candidates (as to-day it is the custom at 
auctions not to make a sale on a single bid) and only after a 
thorough trial of strength. The struggle that followed was long- 
drawn-out, and probably extended over many months, if not 
longer; the whole eastern part of the Empire (not simply Athens) 
was divided in its sympathies, and sent its students to this or 
that sopnist in accordance with these sympathies. The rivalry 
was intense. Proseresius at one time was even driven from the 
city. A new proconsul, coming to Greece, summoned the rival 
sophists to appear in a contest in his presence. Finally, the 



144 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

and ten Greek ' grammarians,' besides one philosopher 
and two lawyers. At Antioch, there were, at one time 
in the second half of the fourth century, at least three 
Greek sophists holding regular appointments, Libanius, 
Zenobius, and Acacius, and later we find Libanius at 

superiority of Proseresius was acknowledged by all; as Eunapius 
says, "after that, no one dared oppose Proseresius, but all, as if 
struck by a bolt from Heaven, acknowledged his superiority," 
and "the rule of Proseresius resembled that of a tyrant, and he 
was famed far and wide for his eloquence" (p. 84: dravres 
avv€X ( *>PV°~ at ' o-vTcp elvai Kpelrrovf p. 85: rvpavvlt i86i<et tij elvaf 
cf. p. 68: Kai irvpdvvei ye tQv 'AdrjvQv p. 78: irpbs rbv OvXiriavbv 
Kparovpra rijs 'Aprtoxefas Ini Xbyois ■ p. 80: tt)v e"irl Xbyois fiaaXeLav 
dxov avrol- p. 90: rbv fiaaiXeiJovTa tQv Xbyuv Lib., i. 24, 15; 
ii. 313, 1; Philos., 559). Eunapius does not say in so many 
words that Proseresius now received "the emoluments of the 
succession," but this result would follow as a matter of course. 
Our understanding of the Eunapius passage has a bearing on the 
question of the number of official sophists at Athens. Zumpt 
and Hertzberg supposed that there was but one official sophist 
here mentioned; Bernhardy, Muller, and Schlosser, that there were 
six. A comparison of affairs at Antioch in this century (see pp. 
270 ff.) and at Athens in the two preceding centuries (see p. 94) 
makes it probable that there were at Athens at this time a num- 
ber of sophists holding regular appointments, but that one of 
these had a position above the others and was the Head of the 
school. A statement in Photius lends further reason to this 
view, for he speaks of Himerius as being "at the head of the 
rhetorical school at Athens" (Bibl., cod. 165, p. 109a: rbv lv 'AdJjvrjffi 
nark prjropetav Trpoiar-q SiSaeicaXeLov). Furthermore, Eunapius 
says that the son of Sopolis was said to have held " the chair " 
at Athens (p. 95: iiri^ePrjK^vai rod dpbvov rbv iralSa <pdo~Kovo~iv), 
and that Parnasius "held the educational chair" (p. 95: iv 
Totfrots ^v rots xpb pots Ka l HcLpvd<rtos eirl rod iraibevrtKov dpbvov), 
while Photius tells us that Leontius was raised to " the sophistical 
chair" (Bibl., cod. 80, p. 60b: eh rbv aocpLo-Tiicbv dpbvov). In all 
these cases (except, possibly, in the passage referring to Parnasius: 
see p. 220, n. 4), we may believe, the chief position, or the chair 
at the head of the school, is meant. It is to be said, however, that 
the term ' chair ' was sometimes used rather loosely. Thus, Hi- 
merius speaks of Isocrates as having held "the chair" at Athens 
at a time when official chairs were quite unknown (or., xxxii. 2: 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 145 

the head of a school consisting of four sophists, or 
rhetors, besides himself. There may have been other 
official sophists at Antioch, and there certainly was an 
official ' grammarian. ' As the fourth century wore on 
and law and Latin usurped, in the popular favor, the 

'I<to/cp<£tt7$ rhv y.kv dpbvov €lx ev ^Adrjpatuv). It is probably in this 
loose sense that Herodes Atticus is said to have held the chair 
at Athens (see p. 92, n. 1). We have several intimations that 
there were a number of official sophists at Athens in the fourth 
century. When Libanius was a student there, the proconsul on 
one occasion deposed three sophists and appointed three others in 
their stead (Lib., i. 19, 16). Not long after, Libanius was called to 
Athens, but whether, if he had accepted the call, he would have 
made a fourth, is uncertain (ib., i. 59, 3). Elsewhere 'chairs' of 
sophistry are spoken of as existing at Athens (ib., i. 333, 13). Pos- 
sibly the Head of the school alone was chosen by contest, while the 
other members were appointed by the council and proconsul. When 
in 356-7 (see Seeck, Briefe d. Lib., p. 62), apparently some years 
after the contest here in question (for the date of the sophist Julian's 
death, see Hertzberg, Gesch. Griech., iii. p. 323, n. 69, and p. 329, 
n. 84), Anatolius came to Athens, he instituted another contest 
among the sophists (Eunap., pp. 85 ff.). Himerius was then one 
of the number (ib., p. 87). Each of the sophists discussed from 
a different point of view the theme propounded, and Anatolius 
afterward remarked that, had there been more than thirteen 
("more than a dozen," we should say; c/. the " thirteen-cubits 
man" in Theoc, xv. 17; see, however, Wyttenbach's note) 
sophists, the result would have been the same (ib., p. 89). This 
remark, which suggests a number less than thirteen, would seem 
to have reference to the official sophists, for of official and unofficial 
sophists together there must have been a great many more than 
thirteen (when Julian died, those who applied for his position were 
"so many," says Eunapius, p. 79, "that I should have difficulty 
in telling their names '•'). Whether all the six sophists nominated 
at the time of Julian's death were official sophists, is not clear, but 
perhaps the two of least importance were not. Harrent, who com- 
bats the idea that there was in any city a school with an official 
head, holds, with Bernhardy, Miiller, and Schlosser, that there 
were six sophists elected after Julian's death (Les ecoles d'Antioche, 
pp. 44, 227). Schemmel (Neue Jahrb., 20, p. 56; 22, p. 495) 
considers that there were three official sophists at Athens and 
three at Antioch. 



146 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

place of Greek, chairs of these subjects were established 
in other cities than Constantinople. Thus Antioch re- 
ceived, apparently, a Latin sophist and a lawyer. 1 The 
great seat of law, however, in the East, was Berytus, 
where were established several chairs of this subject. 2 
Nicsea, Nicomedia, Csesarea in Palestine, and many other 
smaller places in Asia and elsewhere supported at least 
one Greek sophist each. 3 Indeed, the Greek sophist 
then was an indispensable and inevitable feature of 
every Greek community; he was the centre of the intel- 
lectual life of the community, and held to that life 
much the same relation that the academy or the college 
holds to the life of the American community to-day. 4 

There were in all the large university centres many 
professors and tutors outside the official list, who de- 
pended for their income solely on the fees of their stu- 
dents, but these were, at least in the fourth century, 
more or less under the supervision and control of the 
imperial government. Thus, in the case referred to 

1 For Constantinople, see Cod. Th., xiv. 9, 3 (Cod. Jus., xi. 19, 
1); for the 'grammarian* at Athens, Eunap., p. 7, and Suidas, 
e. v. TLafiirp^irtos. As early as the first half of the fourth century 
there were at least two official sophists at Constantinople (Lib., i. 
27, 3; 29, 5). For the case of Antioch, see pp. 295 if., and Lib., i. 
153, 7; iii. 261, 262; ep., 209, 1240. Libanius found it neces- 
sary, as time went on and Latin became indispensable to the 
advocate, to provide instruction in that subject in his school 
under a special teacher (ep., 448, 453); and perhaps also in law. 

2 In Justinian's time probably four, and four at Constantinople 
(Dig., prcef. omnem). Caesarea, Athens, and Alexandria also had 
schools of law. 

'Nicaea (Lib., i. 36, 10); Nicomedia (ib., i. 36, 14); Caesarea 
(Choric, p. 6). Cf. also Lib., ep., 1449; Himer., or., v. 9; and see 
pp. 116, 124. 

4 The sophist's profession is called the "mind of the city" 
(vovv 7r6Xew$, Lib., i. 332, 14). 



THE PROFESSORS : THEIR APPOINTMENT 147 

above, in which Libanius was forbidden by an edict of 
the emperor to remove from Constantinople to Antioch, 
he was at the time a private instructor receiving no 
salary from the government. Again, in the edict issued 
by the Emperor Julian in 362, to which reference has 
already been made, it was ordained that a professor or 
tutor who wished to set up a school of his own must 
first receive formal permission from the local council, 
which permission was to be given by the advice and 
with the consent of the best. The decree embodying 
this permission was then to be sent to the emperor for 
his signature; "in order," thus concludes the edict, 
" that the teacher may approach his task of instructing 
the young of the community with the added honor of 
my approval." These restrictions were, at least in part, 
removed two years later, when Valentinian announced 
that any one who possessed the requisite moral and in- 
tellectual qualifications might, without further ado, set 
up a school. 1 These semi-official, or licensed, teachers 
corresponded in a way to the Privat-Docenten of the 
German universities of the present day. Under the 
edict of Julian, it is hard to see wherein, except in the 
matter of salary, the licensed teachers differed greatly 
from those with regular appointment. 

In the first half of the fifth century, Theodosius II, 
with whom at this time Valentinian III was associated 



1 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 6. It would seem, however, that under 
both edicts some sort of an examination was necessary to deter- 
mine the possession of the qualifications required. It is generally 
recognized that the first of the two edicts was designed to ex- 
clude Christians from the privilege of teaching at the univer- 
sities (c/. Jul., ep. t 42). 



148 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

as emperor of the West, gave to the University at Con- 
stantinople a more rigid organization and limited still 
further in certain ways the right of private instruction. 
The regulations of Theodosius and Valentinian are con- 
tained in three sections of the Theodosian Code, 1 and 
are repeated in part in two sections of the Justinian 
Code. 2 As an interesting specimen of ancient university 
legislation, the sections of the Theodosian Code are 
here translated in full. They are all dated in the year 
425. The first 3 deals with the right of private instruction, 
the number of official chairs, and the assignment of 
rooms for lectures; it is addressed to the city prefect. 

All who [thus runs the edict], wrongfully calling them- 
selves Professors, have been accustomed to meet their 
students, gathered from any quarter, in the public halls and 
lecture-rooms, and to go with them from place to place, 
are hereby forbidden to teach in public. If this practice, 
which is now condemned and forbidden, be, after the 
present proclamation of Our Divine Will, again attempted 
in the future, let him, who shall have disobeyed Our in- 
junction, not only receive the mark of disgrace which he 
deserves, but also understand that he is to be expelled 
from the city, in which he is unlawfully living. Those, on 
the other hand, who have been accustomed to go from 
house to house and to teach privately the same subjects in 
different houses, shall, if they have chosen to devote them- 
selves to private pupils, taught in private houses, in no way 
be affected by this ban. If, however, there be any of this 
number who are seen to hold an appointment at the Uni- 
versity, be it understood that they are strictly forbidden to 
engage in any teaching within private walls whatever, and 

»vi. 21, 1; xiv. 9, 3; xv. 1, 53. 

»xi. 19, 1; xii. 15, 1. 'xiv. 9, 3. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 149 

if it shall be discovered that they are acting contrary to 
this Our Divine Commandment, they shall enjoy none of 
the privileges which are granted deservedly to those who 
are appointed to teach exclusively in the University. — Let 
there teach, as regular Professors, in this University of 
Ours : — of those who are recommended by their knowl- 
edge of Roman eloquence, three orators and ten 'gram- 
marians*; of those who are known for their power in 
Greek eloquence, five sophists and again ten 'gram- 
marians.' And since it is Our wish that the youth who 
are ambitious of glory should not be instructed in these 
arts alone, we add for the first time to the Professors al- 
ready mentioned teachers of profounder knowledge and 
education : let there, namely, be appointed, in addition to 
the others, one who shall examine into the secrets of phi- 
losophy and two who shall expound the principles of law 
and justice. — Special rooms shall be assigned and appointed 
by Your Eminence to each of the Professors, so that neither 
the students nor the teachers shall annoy one another, and 
that the confusion occasioned by the mingling of tongues 
and voices may not disturb the ears, or distract the atten- 
tion, of those engaged in study. 

The second edict ' deals with the disposition of rooms 
in the porticos of the Capitol, some of which rooms were 
assigned to the professors and their classes. 

Rooms which are seen to be adjacent to the north portico 
and are shown to be of a size and splendor to render them, 
owing to the admiration caused by their spaciousness and 
beauty, fit to accommodate public business, are to be 
assigned by the city prefect to the aforementioned in- 
structors, to be used as class-rooms. Those on the east and 
west sides, which have no approach and no public exit 
from a main street, making them open passageways, are 

1 xv. 1, 53. 



150 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

to be fitted up, as heretofore, as restaurants. Rooms, how- 
ever, which are considered too small or too mean, must be 
enlarged, by adding space from the adjacent rooms on 
either side, so that neither the occupants nor the users 
shall be cramped. If any person whose room is taken can 
show that he has obtained it by imperial favor, or in any 
other way as a gift or by lawful purchase, Your Eminence 
shall see that he be reimbursed for the same from the pub- 
lic treasury. 

The third edict * provides for a system of honoring 
with title professors who have taught with success 
twenty years. 

The Greek ' grammarians/ Helladius and Syrianus; 
the Latin 'grammarian/ Theophilus; the sophists, Mar- 
tinus and Maximus ; the lawyer, Leontius : — these men it 
has been decided to honor with the title of Count of the 
First Order, now bestowed by Our Imperial Majesties; 
and they are to rank in dignity with those who are ex- 
Vicars. Furthermore, every other, who shall have been 
recommended in his particular profession, provided he 
shall have led a moral and praiseworthy life, and provided 
he shall have given evidence of skill in teaching, eloquence 
in speaking, subtlety in interpretation, and ability in 
reasoning, and have been found worthy, in the judgment of 
the most honored assemblage of our city, of holding the 
position of Professor in the aforementioned University, 
shall, when he has for twenty years continued in uninter- 
rupted and sedulous performance of his duty of teaching, 
enjoy the like dignities with these men. 

One essential difference we see between the ancient 
university and the modern: in the ancient university 
there was no governing or examining board — no board 

»vi. 21, 1. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 151 

which arranged and co-ordinated the studies or con- 
ducted examinations and gave degrees. The point 
at which the different streams of education met was 
either the local council, which, as we have seen, usually 
made appointments, or the emperor, who, either in his 
own person or through his representative, retained gen- 
eral oversight and control of the teachers and students. 
No attempt, however, was made by either of these, the 
council or the emperor, to regulate the kind or the 
amount of instruction. There is a possible, but very un- 
certain, intimation that at Athens, toward the beginning 
of the fifth century, something in the nature of a de- 
gree was given by a voluntary union of the instruct- 
ors themselves. 1 The intimation, however, is so very 
uncertain that we cannot with safety build much upon 
it. There are also some indications of co-operative 
action among the various members of the teaching corps 
at Antioch in the fourth century, and almost certainly 
there was one sophist at Antioch in this century, Li- 
banius, who possessed a certain degree of authority, 
delegated to him by the council, over the teachers and 
schools of the city as a whole.* These phenomena, how- 
ever, were but the beginnings of what, had conditions 
been more favorable, might in the end have led to some 
more compact union of interests among the teachers. 
The strictest control from above over the teaching force 
of any city seems to have been exerted at Constantinople, 
where, as we have seen, the emperor in the fifth century 
limited considerably the right of private instruction. 
Taken as a whole, however, and in their essential nat- 
i See p. 303, n. 1. » See pp. 270 ff. 



152 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ure, the ancient Greek universities offer us the phe- 
nomenon of a voluntary congregation of professors and 
students, all filled with a like zeal for learning, and each 
professor having his faithful band of enthusiastic fol- 
lowers, bound to him by ties of sentiment and loyalty. 1 
There was, among the sophists of the fourth century 
— the case was not so bad in the preceding centuries — 
little, if any, of that spirit of brotherhood and generous 
freemasonry that usually exists in a community of 
scholars at the present day. Instead, there were jeal- 
ousy, spite, and often unrelenting hatred. Each sophist 
felt himself in an attitude of antagonism toward his 
brother sophists and saw in them his natural enemies. 
The rivalry was intense and often bitter, partaking more 
of the character of personal animosity than of profes- 
sional emulation, and descending in many cases to acts 
of persecution, and even violence.' So it was that, 

1 The nearest approach to a single word for the idea of Univer- 
sity was the name of a building; e. g., the Athenaeum at Rome, 
the auditorium {Cod. Th., vi. 21, 1), the Capitolium, or the 
auditorium Capitoli (ib., xiv. 9, 3) at Constantinople, the Museum 
at Alexandria and possibly at Antioch (Lib., i. 71, 10). 

* A notable statement of the spirit of envy which prevailed 
among teachers in the fourth century is contained in the words 
of Synesius, Dion, 13: "Now the life of the teacher is this: ... As 
soon as he has secured a following of youthful admirers, he will 
speak no word of praise for anything that any man says, for he 
is in danger of being looked down upon and of having to behold his 
troop flock to another school. ... It is part of the teacher's lot to 
be made up of envy, the greatest and the most worldly of the pas- 
sions. He will pray that no man other than himself may shine 
with wisdom in the city, and, if some man do, he will detract 
from that man's good name and try to make himself the sole 
object of regard." Similarly Themistius, 254 b, c: "Workers in 
metal and carpenters, and, if you please, poets and other such 
artists (i. e., sophists), have a right, if one says anything, to rebel 
and show themselves jealous, for the emoluments of their arts 



THE PROFESSORS : THEIR APPOINTMENT 153 

when an election or appointment to a chair was to take 
place, cabals and intrigues were the order of the day. 
In order to illustrate the condition of affairs here referred 
to, we may be allowed to give, at this point, translating 
from Eunapius, an account of what occurred at Athens 
at the time of the death of the sophist Julian and the 
appointment of his successor, Proseresius. Julian, the 
first in point of time of the great sophists of the fourth 
century, was famous far and wide for his wonderful 
gifts as a teacher and interpreter of the art of sophistry, 
and drew large crowds of students from many quarters 
of the Empire. His favorite and most gifted pupil was 
Proseresius, who himself afterward came, in the words 
of his biographer, to exercise an educational control at 
Athens that resembled a tyranny. 1 When Julian died, 
about 337, he bequeathed to Proseresius his house, 
which Eunapius describes as being small and simply 
furnished, but as breathing the atmosphere of a shrine 
of the Muses, 2 and would, no doubt, have had his pupil 
succeed him as Head of the school at Athens. The power 
of appointment to the headship, however, lay at this 
time in the hands of a special body, probably the local 
council, and the appointment was to be made only 
after a rhetorical contest. Six candidates were nomi- 
nated to take part in the contest, and a long and bitter 
struggle for supremacy ensued. 3 

are either money or money and glory, and the one who is worsted 
cannot have an equal share of these with those who are vic- 
torious." "Rivalry begets envy even in wise men," says Philo- 
Btratus (490), and "Man is naturally an envious thing" (ib. f 515). 

1 Eunap., p. 85. 2 P. 68. 

»P. 79. For a discussion of this passage, see p. 142, n. 3. The 
text of Eunapius is uncertain in some places. 



154 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

But when [says Eunapius], after the death of Julian, the 
city was all agog to learn who would be his successor as 
Head of the school, a large number of aspirants presented 
themselves, each claiming to be supreme in the field of 
sophistry — so many were there that I should have diffi- 
culty in telling their names. But these successfully passed 
the test and were nominated by unanimous vote: Prose- 
resius, Hephaestion, Epiphanius, and Diophantus — and 
two others : Sopolis, who was pulled in by the hair, simply 
to fill up the ranks, and one Parnasius, who was of no 
special note. For there had to be at Athens, according to 
the Roman law (or custom), a number of speakers and a 
number of auditors. 

Now, although all these were nominated, the two of least 
importance had only the name of being so, and their power 
ended with the platform and the desk. But in the case of 
the others, who were more powerful, the sympathies of the 
city became straightway divided, and not of the city only, but 
of the whole Roman Empire, and the division took place, 
not on the question of eloquence, but on the question of 
nationality in the matter of eloquence. For the East was 
clearly reserved, like a huge fee, for Epiphanius, Arabia 
fell to the lot of Diophantus, Hephaestion, out of respect 
for Proaeresius, withdrew from Athens and went into retire- 
ment, while to Proaeresius were sent the students from the 
whole of Pontus and the neighboring regions — for the peo- 
ple there admired the man as a treasure that was their own 
— and not from Pontus only, but from all Bithynia as well, 
the Hellespont, and the parts above Lydia, stretching through 
what is now called Asia, to Caria and Lycia, and ending at 
Pamphylia and the Taurus. All Egypt fell to his lot, as a 
portion of his oratorical realm, and the parts which, stretch- 
ing above Egypt toward Libya, are bounded on one side by 
a terra incognita, and on the other by lands which are habit- 
able. This that I have said was true in general, for, strictly 
speaking, there were some differences in these nations in 
the case of a few youths, and then again there were changes, 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 155 

as when one, finding himself at first deceived, went over to 
another sophist. 

Now, Proseresius was so pre-eminently superior to his 
rivals that he soon gathered about him an extraordinarily 
large body of student followers. But the followers of the 
others, all banding together, proved so strong that, after 
bribing the proconsul, they drove Proseresius from the city, 
and so held the power, in the world of letters, in their own 
hands. Proseresius, who, in addition to his flight, was beset 
by dire poverty, being, like Peisistratus, driven into exile, 
later returned. . . . Good fortune attended him, for there 
was a new proconsul in charge of affairs in Greece, who, 
according to the report, was very indignant at what had 
happened. 

But no sooner had Proseresius, through a reversal of for- 
tune and by permission of the emperor, re-entered Athens, 
than his enemies, coiling and twisting themselves anew, 
raised their heads to strike another blow. ... In the 
meantime, Proseresius having, like another Odysseus, 
returned after long absence, found but few of his former 
pupils ... of the same mind as of yore, and these looked 
upon him in astonishment, distrusting what had occurred. 
Encouraged at finding even these, he told them to wait till 
the new proconsul arrived. The proconsul arrived sooner 
than was expected. Entering Athens, he straightway 
called the sophists to a conference, thereby causing in their 
ranks general consternation. However, they came, though 
reluctantly and with many a hem and haw. Themes were 
set, and the sophists, being unable to escape, spoke, each 
striving to do his best. The applause was given as pre- 
arranged, by bands of summoned claqueurs, and so all 
separated, dismay reigning supreme in the ranks of Prose- 
resius's friends. 

The proconsul, however, summoned them all again, as if 
to reward them, and then, giving orders that they should 
be detained, suddenly called in Proseresius. The sophists 
had come, quite ignorant of what was about to happen. 



156 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Then the proconsul, raising his voice, said, "I intend to set 
for you all to-day a single theme, and to hear you discuss 
it at once. Proaeresius shall speak too — after you, or in 
whatever turn you may wish/' 

It was evident that the sophists were trying to escape, 
. . . but the proconsul, raising his voice a second time, 
said, "Proaeresius, do you speak." Then Proaeresius, 
gracefully saying a few words of introduction from his 
chair, and touching on the merits of extempore speech, 
arose, with confidence, when he came to the main part of 
his task, and, as the proconsul was about to propound a 
theme, raised his eyes and looked about the room. Seeing 
the enemy's faction in great force, and his own small and 
retiring, he naturally for a moment lost heart. But, as his 
spirit began to boil within him and he grew hot for the 
fray, he cast his eyes over the crowd, and seeing, in the far 
end of the room, two men, wrapped in their cloaks, whom 
he recognized as past-masters of the art of sophistry and the 
chief offenders against himself, he raised his voice and 
shouted, "Aha! behold my two gallant friends! command 
these, Proconsul, to propound the theme. Then perhaps 
they will learn that they have treated me wrongfully." 

The two, when they heard these words, disappeared 
in the crowd and tried to escape observation. But 
the proconsul, sending his officers through the room, 
caused the men to be taken and brought to the front, and 
then urged them to propound the theme, as it is called. 
After putting their heads together and deliberating for 
a v/hile, they finally gave a subject, the hardest and the 
most unsatisfactory subject they could find, one, besides, 
which was on a private matter and did not readily lend 
itself to rhetorical treatment. Proseresius, looking at the 
men with fire in his eyes, said to the proconsul, "What- 
ever I ask before the contest that is fair, I beg that you 
will grant." The proconsul telling him that nothing that 
was fair should be refused, "Then," said Proaeresius, "I 
request that the short-hand-writers be allowed to enter, 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 157 

and, as they every day take notes of what is said in the 
courts of law, so now that they be permitted to record 
what is said by me." 

When the most skilful of the writers had been allowed to 
enter, they took their stand on either side, ready to begin their 
writing, but none knew what was about to happen. Then 
Proaeresius said again, " One other thing I ask, which is not 
so easy to grant." The proconsul bidding him speak, "It 
is," he said, "that no one shall applaud me." When, much 
to the alarm of all, this request too had been granted, 
Proaeresius began to speak — fluently, and with a sonorous 
ring at the end of every period. The audience, which had 
been enjoined to keep silence, was unable to contain itself 
for wonder, and a deep murmur went through the room. As 
the speaker advanced in his subject, and was carried beyond 
all bounds of what would be considered for any human 
being possible, he entered upon the second part of his speech, 
and filled out the statement of the case; but, leaping about 
the platform and acting as if inspired, he left that part, as 
though it needed no defence, and turned quickly to the other 
side of the argument. The short-hand-writers could hardly 
keep pace with him, and the audience, moved to break 
their silence, were speaking in all parts of the room. Then 
Proaeresius, turning to the writers, said, "Observe now, 
carefully, whether I remember all that I have so far said," 
and, word for word, without making a single slip, he went 
over the whole case a second time. Then not even the pro- 
consul regarded longer his own injunction, nor did the 
audience care for his threats, but, caressing the breast of 
the sophist, as if he were the statue of some god breath- 
ing inspiration, all who were present prostrated them- 
selves before his hands and feet, and some called him a 
god, and some the image of Hermes the Eloquent. His 
rivals lay, racked with envy, but even so some of them 
did not fail to praise him. The proconsul, with his 
body-guard and officers, escorted him from the lecture- 
room. After that no one dared oppose Proaeresius, but 



158 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

all, as if struck by a bolt from heaven, acknowledged his 
superiority. 

Some time later, his rivals, again gaining strength, arose, 
like the heads of Hydra, and returned to their former methods. 
By offering rich banquets and dainty maids, they won over 
to their side some of those who were of most influence. In 
acting thus, they were only following the example of kings, 
who, when they have been defeated in regular battle, find- 
ing themselves reduced to the last extremity, have recourse 
to their light-armed troops, their slingers, and their auxil- 
iary forces, on which they place little dependence; not that 
they really value these, but they are compelled to use 
them owing to their need. So the sophists, resorting to 
the help to which they were obliged to resort, devised such 
plots as these — which were disgraceful enough, but are 
without reproach if a man is basely in love with himself. 
At any rate, their stratagem met with success, and they ob- 
tained a considerable following. But the rule of Proaeresius 
resembled that of a tyrant, and he was famed far and wide 
for his eloquence. For either all those who had intelligence 
joined themselves to him, or else those who came to him 
straightway, because of their choice, gained intelligence. 

This passage presents a vivid and comprehensive 
picture of the sophistical activity in the fourth century, 
and there are many features in it to which we shall recur 
at a later time; but what we are specially interested to 
note here is the bitter and unrelenting character of the 
rivalry that existed among the different sophists — a 
rivalry that, as we shall also see, was often reflected in 
the conduct of their students. As regards the teachers, 
indeed, if we are to believe Libanius, even fathers and 
mothers of families were not exempt from persecution 
at the hands of disgruntled sophists to whom they failed 
to send their sons for instruction. "You say," says 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 159 

Libanius, addressing one of his students, 1 "that your 
father has been injured by the sophist whom you deemed 
unworthy to be your teacher. How many other fathers 
have been injured for the same reason, when the teach- 
ers, saying that they have been insulted, have waxed 
wroth and sought to wreak their vengeance on those at 
hand, since they could not catch those who had gone 
away ? Have not mothers, in cases where the father is 
dead, been dragged into the market-place, though un- 
used to such treatment, and handed over to the violent 
hands of the police ? And when a boy has had neither 
fa'ther nor mother, these miscreants have gone against 
his house-slaves and his lands and those who have had 
the care of his lands, and, by throttling the men and 
choking them, have compelled them to cry out against 
their masters, who have left for other parts." 

We should remember, however, that such proceedings 
as those described form but one side of what is, after 
all, a two-sided picture. There were, in the preceding 
centuries, often much good-will and generous recogni- 
tion of others' merits among the various sophists, and it 
could have been, at any period, only the smallest soph- 
ists that acted in the barbarous spirit described by 
Libanius. 2 

In the year 393, when Libanius was seventy-nine 
years of age, he was urged, after an illness which had 
confined him some time to his house and his bed, to 
appear once more in his class-room. The friend from 
whom this request came expected that there would be 

»iii. 192, 1. 

1 For the other side of the picture, see p. 255. 



160 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

a general concourse of rejoicing teachers to Libanius's 
room to welcome the sophist back to his old haun ts ; but 
Libanius knew better. Only two appeared, " and these," 
he says, 1 "will probably be punished by the others for 
having come." Such, in the fourth century, was the 
jealousy displayed toward the greatest sophist of his 
time by his own fellow-workers and countrymen. 2 

1 Ep., 995. 

2 The experience of Libanius when he first tried to get a foot- 
ing as a teacher at Constantinople well illustrates the methods 
that were employed in this sophistic warfare. When Libanius 
arrived at Constantinople, after his second visit to Athens, there 
were two sophists established there. He was at first discouraged, 
but soon proceeded to make his name known to the city; he 
announced a declamation. Then took place a battle of displays 
between Libanius on the one side and the two sophists on the 
other. The aim of each side was to outdo the other and attract 
the favor of the city to itself. Libanius seems in the end to have 
prevailed, for he soon secured a class of over eighty. Students 
even came to him from outside the city. An edict was put forth 
by the emperor enjoining his stay in Constantinople. But his 
opponents, though defeated, were not silenced; they immediately 
entered upon a campaign of vilification. At this juncture, one 
Bemarchius came on the scene. This sophist had formerly been 
established at Constantinople and was high in favor with the 
emperor, Constantius. Though an adherent of the old religion, 
he had recently made a triumphal march through Asia and as 
far as Egypt with a speech in which he lauded Christ and de- 
scribed at length a certain church built by Constantius. Re- 
turning at this time, he expected to find things at Constantinople 
as he had left them, but none of his former pupils returned to 
him. He then attended a display of Libanius, and came away 
disheartened. A month later he held a display himself, in 
which he thought easily to show his superiority to Libanius. 
In this attempt he was unsuccessful, but soon gave another dis- 
play, in which he presented the speech with which he had re- 
cently met with such favor. This proved to be so obscurely 
written that no one, according to Libanius, could understand it. 
Bemarchius 's next move was to forestall any further attempt of 
Libanius to give a display, by inducing the Governor to with- 
draw his patronage from him and to refuse to attend his lectures. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR APPOINTMENT 161 

Seeing, however, that he was unequal to Libanius in the field of 
oratory, Bemarchius next accused Libanius of employing the 
services of an astrologer, and proceeded to form a large personal 
faction, with the view of eventually bringing about Libanius's 
ruin. Just at this time there occurred a political revolution at 
Constantinople, of which Bemarchius and his followers deter- 
mined to take advantage, in order to seize and imprison their 
opponents. Probably Libanius owed his freedom from im- 
prisonment at this time to the fact that the revolution was soon 
quashed. With the restoration of order, a new governor came 
to Constantinople. He was a bitter enemy of Libanius, and he 
advised the latter to leave the city if he valued his life. Libanius 
left, intending to go to Nicomedia, but an edict from Constanti- 
nople warned him off from that city. He therefore went to 
Nicaea, but later succeeded in settling at Nicomedia. Here also 
he met with persecution, due to the jealousy of the local sophist. 
He stayed at Nicomedia, however, five years, at the end of which 
time he was recalled to Constantinople (Lib., i. 27 ff.). 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY AND POSITION 

IN SOCIETY 

Brilliant indeed must have been the condition of 
the successful sophist in the flourishing period of soph- 
istry. The old feeling of latent hatred and distrust 
which marked the attitude of many well-meaning people 
of the fifth century B. C. toward those who professed a 
higher learning had all disappeared in the centuries 
after Christ. No member of the community was then 
more admired or more honored or more loved than the 
teacher of sophistry. 1 His approach to a city was hailed 
with delight, and the people ran to welcome him from 

1 Cf. Luc, Rhet. prose, 1, for the dignity of the sophist's name 
and profession: rb acp-vbraTov tovto ko.1 irdvTipjov 6voimx, (ro<pi<TTfy • 
also Eunap., p. 99: rQv . . . Pa<ri\£u>v ko.1 t&v A^nop-druv rb p.kyi<TTov 
ai)T$ (Libanius) irpoadt'vTuv, . . . ou/c idtfaro, <p^<ras rbv aotpiarrjv ehai 
/xelfova, and Philos., 624: ovde iir^pdij virb rod 6v6/mitos ovtu> fieydXov 
6vros. Glory, wealth, and recognized position in society were the 
portion of the successful sophist (Luc, Rhet. prcec, 2, 6). A literary 
education was considered the only road to wealth by one whose 
family had become impoverished (Lib., ep., 349). Cf. ib., ep., 655: 
els p.kv xP' t )^ T(av Xbjov c<rx aT0S } e ^ s $ € W7W iiridv/xtav irptorof olSe 
yb.p dpdus, 6ti tois inelviiiv airopovai. to6<t5c KTrjre'ov, ot Kq.Keiva bivavrai 
<pe"peiv. Chrysostom speaks of the man who obtained high office, 
a rich wife, and wealth by his eloquence (Adv. oppug. vit. mon., 
iii. 5, Migne, i. 357), as a typical case. Scopelian was overjoyed 
when Herodes called him his teacher (Philos., 521: ko.1 t£>v tov 
IIoktwXou Tr-qytav ij8i.ov). A governor of a province thought himself 
disgraced if he was not eulogized by the sophist (Lib., ii. 374). 
Cf. Dio Chrys., xviii. 473 R. 

162 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 163 

all quarters; if he condescended to remain among them, 
he was considered to have conferred upon them a great 
honor. By his presence the city was benefited in many 
ways. When Polemo took up his residence at Smyrna, 
crowds of picked youths flocked thither from all parts of 
the Greek world to hear him lecture, and the place gained 
a new importance. The people, who had for long been 
at strife with one another, became reconciled and 
learned new ways of governing and of regulating jus- 
tice. By his address and great persuasive powers, 
Polemo secured for them many advantages from the 
emperor, and when he drove forth, accompanied by a 
large retinue and seated in a Phrygian or Celtic carriage 
drawn by horses with silver-studded harness, he brought 
great glory to the city; "for," says Philostratus, 1 "a 
city is set off by a family in thriving circumstances, just 
as it is by a fine market-place or a grand display of 
houses." The sophist was, as a rule, the most able and 
important man in the community, and his influence was 
exerted on the side of good. Sometimes he was a gen- 
erous benefactor of the city, giving of his means to erect 
costly buildings or to relieve the needs of the poor. 2 At 

1 531, 532. The people of Clazomenae urged Nicetes to settle 
among them because they thought the prestige of the city would 
be greatly enhanced by his presence (ib., 516). See, further, ib., 
511, 605, 606, 613; Lib., i. 332, 13. A man would glorify his coun- 
try by acquiring eloquence (Lib., ep., 23). The sophist Julian drew 
young men from all quarters of the world (Eunap., p. 68). When 
Scopelian went on an embassy to Italy, the youth of the land 
followed him back to Ionia (Philos., 520). 

2 E. g. } Philos., 568, 605. Themistius helped the needy (Lib., 
ep., 379). Cf. the case of Eumenius, who offered to devote his 
whole salary, for as long a time as the need therefor should exist, 
to the restoration of the university-building at Autun (Eumen., 
Pro rest, scol., 11). 



164 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

other times, as in the case of Polemo, he guided, by his 
wise counsel, the politics of the state, and was often, 
either by the state or by the emperor, raised to positions 
of official trust. 1 He, of all men, was chosen to go on 
important embassies, and then his eloquence and the 
favor enjoyed by his class stood him in good stead. 
Cities and individuals vied with one another in honoring 
him while he lived, and, after his death, they raised to 
his memory statues and other memorials. 8 

An important privilege attaching to the educational 
profession in those days was the immunity from taxa- 
tion and other public burdens (ateleia, areXeca, as it was 
called) 3 enjoyed, in some measure at least, by nearly 

1 The imperial secretaryship was often filled by a distinguished 
sophist; e. g., by Adrian (Philos., 590), and by Antipater (ib., 
607). For other positions, see ib., 596, 600, 601, 607. Libanius 
speaks of a sophist ttjv tt6\ip &t6 vevn&Tuv Ayopn (ii. 581, 9). See 
p. 76, n. 2. 

* Lollianus (Philos., 527), Polemo (ib., 543), Aristeides (ib., 
582), and Proaeresius (Eunap., p. 90) were honored by statues. 
Busts of Varus were set up in a temple or sacred precinct (Philos., 
576). Philostratus (543) says that it was evident that Polemo was 
not buried at Smyrna, for the reason that, if he had been, no shrine 
would have been considered too sacred to hold his remains. 
Dionysius was appointed governor of a large province, and was 
made a Roman knight and a " Fellow " of the Alexandrian Museum 
(ib., 524). Themistius was made a member of the Senate of 
Constantinople (Themis., 313 c), received a silver chariot with 
heralds (ib., 353 d), and was honored in many other ways (ib., 
146 b, 214 a, b). See also Philos., 611. A title was offered 
Libanius, which he refused to accept (Lib., i. 174, 2; Eunap., p. 
100). He was intimate with the highest officials, who strove to 
do him honor. A magistrate had Libanius's picture painted and 
put in a public place (ib., ii. 413, 414). Libanius pleads that 
officials should close their doors to sophists, as some sophists use 
their influence at Court to advance their own interests and in- 
crease the size of their classes (ib., ii. 600, 1 ff.\ iii. 80, 9; 91, 6; 
103, 5). See Liebenam, St'ddteverwaltung, p. 78. 

• Also aXctTovpyrjala, vacatio, immunitas^ excusatio. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 165 

all teachers from the time of Vespasian or even earlier. 1 
This was a privilege that was then much sought after 
and highly prized. The duties of public life, which in 
the beginning had been more or less voluntary, had, as 
time went on, become both more numerous and more 
burdensome, and they were now obligatory on all men 
of means; in most instances they involved large ex- 
penditures of money and much sacrifice of time. Not 
only this, but taxation was pressing more and more 
heavily on all classes of society alike. To escape from 
this twofold burden was in itself no small remuneration. 
Some mention has already been made in a previous 
chapter* of the immunities enjoyed by professors, and 
it is not necessary to repeat here all that was there said. 
According to an edict of Commodus, 3 which was based 
on edicts of earlier emperors, philosophers, sophists, 
'grammarians/ and physicians were excused from act- 
ing as guardians, trustees, superintendents of palaestrae, 
sediles, priests, commissaries of grain and of oil, and 
judges, were not liable to have officers of the government 
quartered on them, and were not obliged to serve against 
their will on embassies and in the army; in fact, no 
service, national or other, was required of them except 
by their own consent. From time to time these privi- 
leges were confirmed and amplified by subsequent em- 
perors, and were even extended to the families and 
possessions of the beneficiaries; "to the end," says an 
edict of Cons tan tine, 4 " that those engaged in teaching 

1 See p. 81, n. 3. 

»Ch. V. 'Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 8; cf. 6, 1. 

4 See Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 3. The sections in the Codices, etc., 
bearing on the immunity of teachers are the following: Cod. Th., 



166 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

may with more ease instruct many in the arts and sci- 
ences." 

There seems originally, as the edict of Commodus 
shows, to have been no distinction made, in the matter 
of immunities, between philosophers and other teachers, 1 
but the comments of the third century jurists, 2 as well 
as the rescript of Diocletian and Maximian quoted 
below, make it evident that a change had taken place 
in this regard in their time. Even in an edict of An- 
toninus Pius it was stated that philosophers were ex- 
pected, in case they were very rich, to serve the state in 
ways which called for the expenditure of money; "if," 
continues the edict, 3 "they raise any question about 
their wealth, they will by that very fact be seen to be no 
philosophers." "Your profession and your request are 
at variance with each other," wrote Diocletian and 
Maximian to the philosopher Polymnestus, who had 
claimed immunity from certain duties involving the ex- 
penditure of money; * "for while you profess to be a 
philosopher, you are convicted of the blindness of 
avarice, and you alone try to avoid the burdens which 
are attached to your patrimony. You may learn from 
the example of all others that your request is vain." 

xiii. 3, 1; 3, 3; 3, 10; 3, 16; 3, 17; 3, 18; Cod. Jus., x. 42, 6; 47, 
1; 48, 12, 1; 53, 6 and 11; xii. 40, 8; Dig., xxvii. 1, 6; 1. 4, 18, 
30; 5, 2, 8; 5, 8, 4; 5, 9; 5, 10; Inst., i. 25, 15; Frag. Vat., 149, 
150. Students were also sometimes granted immunity (Cod. Jus., 
x. 50, 1 and 2). 

1 See also Dig., 1. 4, 18, 30; Frag. Vat., 149. Favorinus claimed 
immunity from the priestship on the ground that he was a phi- 
losopher (Philos., 490), and Flavius Archippus immunity from 
jury service on the same ground (Plin., Ep. ad Trai., Iviii. [lxvi. J). 

*Dig., xxvii. 1, 6; 1. 5, 8, 4. 

• Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 7. ■ Cod. Jus., x. 42, 6. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 167 

In this matter, as in the matter of their pay, to be con- 
sidered later, the philosophers were, by their very pro- 
fession, placed at a disadvantage. In the third century 
they enjoyed immunity from the burdens of guardian- 
ship and from the so-called munera sordida corporalia 
(physical services considered degrading, such as the 
baking of bread, the burning of lime, etc.) only. 1 Ex- 
cept in one edict, of the year 369, a there is no further men- 
tion of philosophers in the Codices or the Digests until 
we come to the edict of Honorius and Theodosius of the 
year 414, in which immunity is granted to certain phi- 
losophers at Constantinople; 8 though it is possible that 
philosophers are included under such expressions as 
magistri studiorum, professores literarum, which occur 
in some of the edicts. 4 This omission of practically all 
reference to philosophers in the edicts and rescripts of 
the fourth century may be due to the comparatively 
small number of philosophers that then existed and to 
their decreasing importance. 

^{.The basis on which immunity was granted to teachers 
was that, in exercising their profession, they were al- 
ready serving the state; a double service could not be 
required of them. 5 The same principle was accountable 
for the granting of immunity to practising physicians. 6 
It is noteworthy that, when Diocletian and Maximian 



1 Dig., 1. 5, 8, 4. See also Kuhn, Verf. d. font. Reichs, i. p. 119. 
* Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 7 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 8). 
« Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 16 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 11). 
4 See p. 138, n. 1. 

8 C/. Lib., ii. 211, 22: oh ef t« 4>alrj \eirovpyetp, fous ofa &v 
d/idproi. See also Kuhn, Verf. d. r'om. Reichs, i. p. 120, n. 908. 
6 Lib., ep., 635. 



168 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

forbade the municipal councils to grant immunity, 
they made an exception in favor of teachers of liberal 
studies and physicians. It was a corollary of this prin- 
ciple that a sophist, * grammarian/ or physician, who was 
born in one place and was teaching or practising in an- 
other, could not, except in certain specified cases, enjoy 
immunity in the place of his birth. 1 The case of the 
sophist Philiscus will illustrate what has here been said. 2 
Philiscus, whose mother was a native of the district of 
Eordaea, in Macedonia, was engaged in teaching at 
Athens in the reign of Caracalla. The Eordaeans, with 
whom it was a custom to claim for services all who were 
citizens of their land by either parent, called upon the 
sophist on one occasion to perform some local service 
in the interest of the community. Philiscus objected, 
and the case was carried for settlement to Rome and to 
the emperor. Meanwhile, Philiscus, designing to out- 
manoeuvre the Eordaeans, hastened to Rome, attached 
himself to the following of the literary Julia, mother of 
the emperor, and through her secured his appointment 
to the chair of sophistry at Athens, before his antago- 
nists arrived on the scene. When the case of the Eordaeans 
came up, Caracalla was furious to find that he had been 
outwitted. He called on the sophist to plead his own 
cause in court, and then, when the latter appeared, 
would hardly hear him to an end. The words, the man- 
ner, the dress of Philiscus, all gave him offence, and he 
interrupted the speaker from time to time with sarcastic 
remarks and questions. Finally, the case having been 
decided in favor of the Eordaeans, Philiscus ventured 
« Dig., xxvii. 1. 6, 9^.; 1. 5, 9. » Philos., 622, 623. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 169 

to remind the Emperor that his (Philiscus's) position of 
sophist at Athens afforded him protection in the present 
instance. Thereupon the emperor burst forth with 
great indignation: "Neither you nor any other teacher 
shall go free of burdens. I will not have the cities de- 
prived of their due services for the sake of a few paltry 
declamations." So Philiscus held the chair of sophistry 
at Athens for seven years, without the immunities that 
were usually attached thereto. In this case, in so far as 
Caracalla deprived Philiscus of his immunity at Eordsea, 
he seems to have acted in accordance with the law as set 
down in a previous edict, 1 but in depriving the sophist 
of his Athenian immunity, he exercised the imperial 
prerogative of arbitrary action. Notwithstanding this 
fact, he afterward granted to Philostratus, the Lemnian, 
immunity for a single speech. 2 

It not infrequently happened that a professor volun- 
tarily accepted an office or performed a service for his 
city out of a feeling of patriotism, but such action on his 
part was not to be held to prejudice his case or to serve 
as a precedent for future requisitions on the part of the 
community. 8 In the latter half of the fourth century, 
however, when, owing to the increased taxation and the 
growth of a large body of privileged functionaries at- 
tached to the imperial service, it became yearly more 
difficult for the communities to meet the requirements 
of the government, a city did sometimes try to impose 
burdens upon those to whom it had granted immunity. 

1 Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 9. * Philos., 623. 

3 This is distinctly stated in an inscription in Dittenberger, 
Syl. Inscr. Grcec, No. 414, and in Cod. Jus., x. 44, 2. 



170 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Such a case was that of Eusebius, a former pupil of 
Libanius. Eusebius had been appointed sophist at 
Antioch by vote of the municipal council. The council 
had also passed several decrees — four in all — begging 
the emperor to confer upon Eusebius some distinction 
— seemingly a title or the honor of a special edict which 
should have the effect of confirming their own votes 
conferring upon the sophist immunity from civic duties. 
This the emperor had done. Later, Eusebius was in- 
duced to serve on an embassy to the Court at Constan- 
tinople, with the understanding that this service should 
not stand as a precedent for future loss of privileges. 
Certain of his fellow-citizens, however, while them- 
selves on an embassy to Constantinople, made the effort 
to have his immunity withdrawn. The attempt was un- 
successful, but Eusebius won his case only after pro- 
ceeding twice to Constantinople and pleading at the 
Court in person. 1 Though the enjoyment of immunity 
by the teacher is spoken of as being a matter of law, 1 
and though it so appears in the edicts, it is evident from 
this account that appointment to a chair and immunity 
from service were not so inseparably united that it was 
not thought desirable at times to have a special decree, or 
an edict, or even a title, specifically conferring the latter.' 

« Lib., ep., 789, 797 a-798, 820-827, 836-839; i. 154, 12; ii. 224, 
14; iii. 160, 9 ff.; see also Seeck, Brief e d. Lib., pp. 143, 144. The 
attempt was also made to deprive Libanius of his immunity 
(Lib., i. 154, 7), and, apparently, one Gerontius at Apamea (ib., 
ep., 1163-1165, 1297, 1428, 1431, 1449). 

• Lib., i. 154, 8; ep., 825. 

• In general, on the subject of immunities, see Kuhn, Verf. d. 
rom. Reichs, i. pp. 83-122, and Liebenam, Stadteverwaltung, pp. 
417 ff. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 171 

The financial remuneration of the Greek professor 
came in several ways. If he enjoyed a regular appoint- 
ment at some one of the university centres, he received 
a fixed salary, which, in the second and third centuries, 
was paid either by the city or by the emperor, according 
as the chair which he filled was a municipal or an im- 
perial donation. 1 If it was the latter, the professor was 
said to be " eating the emperor's bread." 2 The amount 
of the salary is in some cases known. That of the 
'political' chair of rhetoric at Athens, founded by 
Antoninus Pius, was, in the second century, one talent 
($1,080), 3 while that of the imperial chair, established 
by Marcus Aurelius, as well as that of each of the sev- 
eral chairs of philosophy, was 10,000 drachmas ($1,800). 4 
Philosophers in some city are said to have received as 
high as 600 aurei ($3,000). 5 In the troubled period 
which followed the death' of Alexander Severus the 
salaries of the different professors were apparently al- 
lowed to lapse. Those of the philosophical schools, 
with the possible exception of the Academic school, 6 
seem never to have been restored, but, after the reor- 
ganization of the Empire under Diocletian and Con- 
stantine, at the beginning of the fourth century, the 

1 Philos., 566, 591 ; Luc, Eunuch., 3, 8; Dig., 1. 9, 4, 2. Caracalla 
deprived the Peripatetics at Alexandria of their salaries (Dio 
Cass., lxxvii. 7.) 

1 Lib., i. 29, 4: twc (iao-iXtws ia-dletv ep., 488: rrjs iic (HaffiKiias 
rpotftijs. Cf. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. xii. ch. 7: "'Why, cer- 
tainly,' " replied the exciseman, " ' I should be a very ill man, if 
I did not honor the king, whose bread I eat.' " 

•Philos., 600. 

♦Philos., 566, 591; Luc, Eunuch., 3, 8. 

6 See p. 87, n. 3. 

8 See Procop., Anecd., c 26, quoted p. 126, n. 2; and also p. 105. 



172 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

salaries of the sophists and ' grammarians ' were once 
more made available. 1 

To what extent these salaries were now paid by the 
emperor, independently of the communities, it is diffi- 
cult to say, for the evidence on this point is conflicting. 
The emperor is certainly mentioned in several passages 
as being the source of a sophist's salary, as, for exam- 
ple, that of Libanius at Constantinople and that of 
Eudsemon at Elusa. 2 On the other hand, the local 
council is no less distinctly declared to be in certain 
places the paymaster. When, nearly at the close of 
the third century, Constantius Chlorus reorganized the 
University at Autun, in Gaul, he fixed the salary of the 
new Head of the school, Eumenius, at 600,000 nummi, 
but he also directed that this amount be paid from the 
city funds. 3 The edict of the emperors, Valens, Gratian, 
and Valentinian, directing that salaries be paid to 
professors in the various cities of Gaul, prescribes 
that these be taken from the flscus. 4 The words 
fiscus and cerarium, however, were often used at this 
time indiscriminately, 5 and it is probable that the city 
treasuries are here meant, for the edict contains the 
further statement that the cities have not the liberty of 
donating salaries to their professors at their own pleas- 
ure. Again, the city of Chalcis, in Syria, is said to have 

1 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 1 (Cod. Jus., x. 53, 6). 

*Lib., ep., 488, 132; cf. i. 29, 5. 

» Eumen., Pro. rest, scol., 14 (ex rei publicce viribus). The 
nummus in this case Mommsen (Hermes, 25, p. 27) considers to be 
the Diocletian denarius (see p. 184, below), so that Eumenius's 
salary would be between $2,500 and $3,000. 

4 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 11. 

8 Hirschfeld, Die kais. Ver. bis auf Dioc, p. 17, n. 2. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 173 

voted its sophist, Domninus, a salary, 1 and the sophist 
Priscio was drawn from Antioch to Csesarea by an offer 
on the part of the Cesareans of greater emoluments, 
which probably means salary. 2 Gerontius was raised 
to the chair of sophistry at Apamea by his countrymen, 
and was granted by them a considerable income. 3 The 
argument of the Twenty-ninth Oration of Libanius, 4 in 
which a plea is made for the better remuneration of the 
rhetors of Antioch, seems to rest on the assumption 
that the salaries of these rhetors were derived from the 
city funds. Finally, the Emperor Probus (276-282) is 
said to have established salaries at Antioch etc rov 
SrjfjLoaiov. 5 

(\n view of this discrepancy, we should be inclined to 
conclude that some salaries were paid by the city and 
some by the emperor, and this was probably the case. 
One, indeed, would naturally assume that the duty of 
payment was a concomitant of the privilege of appoint- 
ment. As we shall presently see, a single sophist's 
salary was sometimes made up of contributions from 
different sources. The very same salary which Libanius 
in two places says he received from the emperor at 
Constantinople, he in another passage says he received 

i Lib., iii. 158, 1. 2 Lib., ii. 220, 21; cf. i. 76, 7. 

8 Though this seems to be distinguished from the salary (Lib., 
ep., 1431, 1449). 

Mi. 204-223 (the Thirty-first in Forster). See, especially, pp. 
211, 213, 214. 

5 Malalas, xii. p. 302. The word drj/xSa-iov, however, was some- 
times used of city funds (Liebenam, St'ddteverwaltung, p. 298, n. 1), 
sometimes of state funds (Hirschfeld, Die kais. Vet. bis auf Dioc, 
p. 13, n. 3; p. 30, n. 2); here and in the Themistius passage cited 
below (p. 174, n. 1) it probably refers to state funds. Cf. Procop., 
Anecd., c. 26, quoted p. 126, n. 2, and Eunap., p. 90. 



174 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

from the city; and he also says that this salary was 
taken away from him by order of the emperor. 1 Prob- 
ably Libanius's salary at Constantinople, while an im- 
perial grant, was partly paid from city funds. 

We should also remember, however, that confusion 
was likely to occur, owing to the close interest which 
the imperial government took, in the fourth century, 
in the financial affairs of the municipalities. As the 
financial requirements of the government increased, 
the emperor became increasingly jealous of the 
management of the city funds, and felt more and more 
inclined to hedge them around with restrictive reg- 
ulations. Thus, municipalities were forbidden, un- 
authorized, to expend public moneys for the erection of 
buildings ; new taxes might not be imposed by the cities 
without the emperor's consent; and the raising of loans 
was absolutely forbidden to the communities. 1 And so, 
even as early as the third century, local councils were 
forbidden to assign salaries to any but professors of the 
liberal arts and physicians, 3 while in the fourth century, 
by an edict of Constantine of the year 349, no salaries 
at all were to be voted by the municipal councils with- 
out the special direction of the emperor; 4 and, as we 
have already seen, Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, 
in their edict to the governor of Gaul in 376, warned the 
municipalities against donating salaries to professors 
on their own responsibility. 5 Furthermore, it appears 

1 Ep., 1254: tfv re iKapTTovfxrjp in ttjs ir6\eu)s Tpocfffjv, and yv&ix-Q 
Pa<ri\4ws. Cf. Themis., 291d-292 c. 

2 Seeck, Untergang der antiken Welt, ii. pp. 168, 169. 

3 Dig., 1. 9, 4, 2. * Cod. Th., xii. 2, 1 (Cod. Jus., x. 37). 
8 Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 11. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 17f> 

that even in cases in which the salary was granted by 
the municipality, the sophist had sometimes to plead 
with the imperial magistrates before he could obtain his 
money. 1 Under these conditions, when the emperor's 
hand was so strongly felt in all local financial matters, 
it is not surprising if even municipal grants were at 
times felt to be due to the emperor's favor; they were 
made, at least with his implied, if not with his actual, 
consent, and sometimes by his direction, and they were 
subject to his control. 

(Some idea of the actual conditions under which soph- 
ists af this time got and retained their official salaries 
may be gained from the stray notices which Libanius 
gives of his experience at the time of his removal from 
Constantinople to Antioch. Libanius removed to An- 
tioch from Constantinople in the spring of 354. While 
at Constantinople, he had been in receipt of an official 
salary, which he at one time says came from the em- 
peror, and at another time from the city, 2 and when he 
removed to Antioch this salary seems not to have been 
stopped at once. Why this was the case we are not told, 
but we may surmise that it was because Libanius had 
not yet received full discharge from his duties at Con- 
stantinople; he for some time stood in constant dread 
of being recalled to that city. 3 Not long after his re- 
moval, however, apparently in the next year, one whose 

• E. g., Lib., ii. 212, 12 ff. * See pp. 172, 173. 

3 When his salary was finally withdrawn, he was, he says, quite 
resigned to the loss, as it was better that he should sever all con- 
nection with the city (ep., 488). Acacius was in the enjoyment 
of a salary at Antioch; when he went to Palestine, an effort was 
made to take this salary away, which effort Libanius opposed 
(#>., ep., 292). 



176 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

name is not given secured, first the cessation of further 
payments to Libanius, and then, by imperial edict, the 
transference of the salary to another sophist, presum- 
ably one who was at the time teaching at Constantinople; 
and he even went so far as to write to the Praetorian 
Prefect of the East, within whose jurisdiction Antioch 
was, with the object of demanding back from Libanius 
that part of the salary that had already been paid 
since Libanius's removal. The prefect at this time 
was Strategius; being a man who exercised justice in 
his office, and was withal an admirer of Libanius, he re- 
fused to listen to the request. 1 Through his efforts, the 
attempt to extort past payments from Libanius was 
stopped, and apparently even a postponement of the 
withdrawal of the salary was effected. Libanius sent 
a special messenger, one Agrcecius, to Constantinople 
to secure the arrears that were due him, and he wrote 
to Themistius, the famous philosopher of Constan- 
tinople, and to Photius, probably the proconsul of 
the province in which Constantinople was situated, to 
assist the messenger in his mission. 2 Just when the 
salary was finally withdrawn for good we do not know, 
but apparently in the spring of 357; there remained 
some arrears which were never paid. 3 We are also ig- 
norant of the exact time when Libanius first received a 
salary at Antioch, but it was earlier than the winter of 
358-359, for we find him then reminding Polychronius, 
the proconsul of Phoenicia, of the fact that he had been 
instrumental in lowering, or even totally withdrawing, 

» Lib., ep., 1254, 1247. » Lib., ep., 1261, 1262. 

_• Lib., ep., 488. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 177 

that salary; ' and it would seem from certain other in- 
dications that it was possibly as early even as 354, in 
which case Libanius was receiving a salary from Con- 
stantinople and another from Antioch at the same time. 2 
The man who instigated the movement to take away 
Libanius's salary at Antioch was Helpidius, at that 
time Praetorian Prefect of the East. This salary was 
restored in 362 by Salustius or Salutius, successor of 
Helpidius. Half of it was then to come from Antioch 
and half from Phoenicia; the obtaining of the latter half, 
it was hoped, would be expedited by Julian, the pro- 
consul of Phoenicia. 3 Gaianus, the successor of Julian, 
was later reminded by Libanius that he had the power 
of increasing or diminishing the amount of the salary. 4 
Several interesting pieces of information are derived 
from this account. It is evident, in the first place, that 
the imperial magistrates were very influential in deter- 
mining the size of the teacher's salary; and, secondly, 
it is evident that the teacher's salary sometimes came 
from different sources. Libanius's position, though part 
of his salary was derived from the city of Antioch, 
may be considered as an imperial donation — imperial, 
for instance, as distinguished from the positions of 
the rhetors at Antioch, to be considered later. 5 Prob- 
ably there were other such imperial chairs at Antioch 
(as the chair held by Acacius), and also at Constanti- 
nople and some smaller cities. The salary in each of 
these cases may have been derived from several sources. 

> Lib., ep., 27. 

2 See p. 267, n. 1. For the dating of the letters of Libanius, see 
Seeck, Briefe d. Lib. 

3 Lib., ep., 652. * Lib., ep., 710. 6 Ch. XII. 



178 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

In consequence of the frequent and often serious 
fluctuations in prices to which the Roman market was 
in those days subject, the salaries of professors were, in 
the fourth century, in common with most other salaries, 
generally paid in kind or at rates varying as the price 
of some staple commodity, such as wheat or oil. Thus, 
in the edict of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, of the 
year 376, relative to professors in Gaul, it was directed 
that the Latin or Greek sophist should be paid a salary 
of twenty-four annonse, the 'grammarian' a salary of 
twelve annonse; in the specially flourishing city of 
Treves the sophist was to receive thirty annonse, the 
Latin ' grammarian ' twenty, the Greek ' grammarian ' 
(if one worthy could be found) twelve. The annona 
was the allowance of a common soldier, and it ap- 
parently sufficed, though in slender measure, for a man 
and his family; ' it comprised such articles as bread, 
pork, mutton, salt, wine, and oil. Themistius, who 
held an appointment at the University of Constantinople, 
was entitled to a salary of two hundred medimni (i. e., 
about three hundred bushels) of wheat, and the same 
number of jars of oil, probably monthly, though of this 
we are not told. 2 Themistius speaks most disparagingly 
of the philosopher who weighs his salt fish, wrangles 
with the paymaster about the weight of his goods, and 
tries to convert his wine and provisions into money. 3 

1 See Seeck, Untergang der antiken Welt, ii. p. 540. The salary 
was called Tpocp-fj (Lib., ep., 132), rpo<pal (ib., ep., 27), vvpol (ib., 
i. 76, 7), <rtTos (ib., ep., 710), riy.i\ (ib., ep., 652), n/xal (ib., ep., 
710); more technically, avvra^ts (ib., ii. 212, 22), a-iTrja-is (Malalas, 
xii. p. 302). * Themis., 292 a. 

•Themis., 292c. Besides salt fish, 6\pa are here mentioned; 
barley, in Lib., ep., 27, 710. Sometimes part payment was still 
made in money (ib., ep., 710; ii. 211, 5). 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 179 

The conversion of surplus goods into money, however, 
must have been no unusual proceeding, and it probably 
caused the sophist no little trouble and anxiety. 1 Some- 
times the professor's income was increased in still other 
ways — by valuable gifts, as in the case of Libanius at 
Constantinople, or by the assignment of a piece of land 
for use during the professor's lifetime, as happened 
more than once at Antioch. 2 

Those sophists who had no official appointment sub- 
sisted upon the fees of their students. 3 Whether fees 
were also a form of income for the officially appointed 
sophists is not for all periods and for all places certain. 
There is evidence that they were, if the sophist chose to 
make them so, at Athens in the second century, and at 
Antioch in the fourth century, 4 and probably the same is 
true of every place up to the end of the fourth century. 
In the fifth century, however, under the stricter regula- 
tions of Theodosius, the case may have been otherwise, 
at least at Constantinople. 

The size of the fee was — except under the circum- 
stances immediately to be noted — determined by the 
sophist himself, and depended in great measure on the 

1 Libanius speaks of a sophist, Eudsemon, who was concerned 
to turn his 'allowance' into money (ep. t 132). 

1 Lib., i. 57, 9; ii. 208, 10; 211, 9; 213, 2. Libanius at Con- 
stantinople seems to have enjoyed the income from a piece of 
land. 

"Called fuadSs (Themis., 288 d); dfwi^al (Lib., i. 197, 16). 

4 The sophists of Antioch took fees while in the enjoyment of a 
salary (Lib., ii. 215, 1). Themistius at Constantinople prided 
himself on not taking fees from his students (Themis., 288 c, 
289 a, 291 c, 294 a). But he also waived his salary, so we can 
hardly draw an argument from his case. For Athens, see Philos., 
526. See also Lib., ep., 1449. 



180 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

breadth of the sophist's reputation and the depth of the 
student's, or the student's father's, purse. If the sophist 
was famous and drew large audiences, he could, if he 
was so disposed, demand and obtain almost any price 
for his lectures. Not always, however, did the pro- 
fessor have a fixed price for his course, to be im- 
posed on all students alike; sometimes an agreement as 
to the size of the fee was made with the student or the 
student's parent or guardian before work in the course 
began; 1 and at other times the professor left it to the 
student himself to give whatever he could and would. 
Rich students were inclined to be generous toward 
favorite sophists, and often gave them voluntarily large 
sums of money, as a mark of admiration and respect. 
When the sophist Scopelian came to Athens, early in 
the second century, Herodes Atticus was a boy, study- 
ing under the tutorship of his father. Scopelian was 
famous in the line of extempore speaking, and the young 
Herodes, after hearing him declaim, imitated so well 
his style and manner that the father, pleased with the 
boy's attainment, rewarded both him and the sophist. 
To the former he gave five hundred talents, to the latter 
fifteen ($540,000 and $16,200, respectively). Out of 
his present Herodes gave to his teacher another fifteen 
talents, and the father, asserting that all other sophists 
— those of an earlier age — had done nothing but 

1 Lib., ii. 342, 13; Themis., 288 d. Lucian tells of a case in which 
it was agreed that payments should be made on the last day of 
the month (Hermot., 80). Elsewhere the first of January is men- 
tioned as the regular pay-day (Lib., i. 259, 20; ii. 427, 3, 11). 
Sometimes presents of money, fruit, wine, oil, etc., were sent to 
the sophist by the student's father (ib., iii. 135, 10). 






THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 181 

corrupt his son's tongue, destroyed their busts, which 
had been arranged along the corridors of his house. 1 

The well-known generosity of Herodes was doubtless 
often taken advantage of. On one occasion he sent to 
the distinguished sophist Polemo, whom he had shortly 
before heard declaim, the sum of 150,000 drachmas 
($27,000). Polemo refused to accept the gift, and 
Herodes thought himself held in scorn, until a friendly 
interceder suggested that possibly the offended sophist 
might accept 250,000 drachmas ($45,000). Herodes 
added the extra 100,000 drachmae, and had the pleasure 
of beholding his gift accepted. 2 

These sums seem in this connection fabulous, but it 
must be remembered that they were given for single re- 
citals, not for courses of lectures, and they cannot be con- 
sidered typical except of what the most famous sophists 
would occasionally receive from princes and wealthy 
patrons of the art. 3 We must also bear in mind that 
this was practically the only way in which a prince or 
wealthy patron could testify materially to his admiration 
for the art of letters and his gratitude toward his alma 
mater. To bestow valuable gifts and privileges on in- 
dividual teachers was, in fact, to donate to the univer- 
sity itself. The corporate alma mater (if we except the 
philosophical schools, to which, as we have elsewhere 
seen, funds were also sometimes given) existed not at 
this period. The fees which Damianus gave, however, 
were considerably more moderate than those of Herodes, 

' Philos., 521. 2 Philos., 538. 

8 Such another wealthy patron was Theagenes, chief magis- 
trate of Athens, in the fifth century: dva\ovro 5e a&rcp iroWd. rCav 
Xpt\liAT<jiv el's re 8i8a<rK&\ovs ko\ larpoi/s k. t. X. (Suidas, s. v. Qeayiprjs). 



182 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

but still generous. 1 Damianus later became a sophist 
himself, and, while studying as a young man in Asia, he 
gave to each of the great sophists whose lectures he at- 
tended, Aristeides of Adriani, and Adrian of Tyre, 
10,000 drachmae ($1,800). Damianus, however, was ac- 
counted wealthy, and, though the prices which he paid 
to his two teachers were apparently for courses of lect- 
ures, not for single recitals, they were still in the nature 
of gifts, and were considered exceptional. The fee 
which Proclus set for his course, on the other hand, was 
probably somewhat below the usual price demanded. 2 
He required, once for all, from each of his students, 
the sum of one hundred drachmae ($18), and then al- 
lowed him to attend lectures as long as he would. 
Proclus also provided a library for the special use of his 
students, so that they might supplement his lectures by 
private reading. 

We do not find that, as a rule, the sophists, even the 
greatest of them, were exorbitant in their charges for 
regular instruction, while they were certainly often most 
generous and considerate toward their poorer pupils. 
Thus, Scopelian, who was so richly rewarded by Atticus 
for improving his son's style, graded his fees according 
to the circumstances of his pupils. 3 The wealthy 
Damianus, while teaching at Ephesus, took no fees at 
all from students who came from abroad, provided he 

1 Philos., 605. 

2 Philos., 604. In 361, Libanius says that probably a man could 
obtain more for his teaching in Antioch than elsewhere — prob- 
ably elsewhere in Asia is meant (ep., 277). For the price of a 
sophist at Rome, see Juv., vii. 186; of a ' grammarian,' ib., 215 ff. 

3 Philos., 519. 






THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 183 

saw that they could not afford to pay, 1 while Themistius, 
the sophist-philosopher of Constantinople, prided him- 
self on not making money out of his pupils, and was 
even ready on occasion to lend a helping hand to those 
who stood in need. 2 Lollianus, who was sophist and at 
the same time the chief magistrate at Athens, collected 
on one occasion a contribution from his students to 
relieve a threatened famine, and then made up the 
amount so collected by remitting the fees for his lectures. 3 
From these and other 4 cases we may see that the sophist 
was not, as a rule, inclined to press hard on his poorer 
students, and that the way to a higher education in 
those days was probably rarely closed to a boy by 
reason of the cost of tuition alone. It is evident from 
many passages in the sophists themselves that the 
studying youth was then, as it is now, made up of both 
rich and poor alike. 5 This democratic mingling of all 
classes in the sophist's school-room must, we should say, 

1 Philos., 606. Isocrates, at an earlier time, took fees from 
foreigners, and those well-to-do foreigners, only (Isoc, De antid., 
39, 164). 

2 Themis., 288-291; Lib., ep., 379. • Philos., 526, 527. 

4 See, for example, the case of Libanius (p. 187), who in his 
later years took no fees from his students. He says that it was 
pay enough if the students displayed a disposition to learn {ep., 
1583). Similarly, Themistius thought it pay enough if his stu- 
dents turned out modest in their bearing, restrained in their pas- 
sions, well-mannered, lacking in awkwardness, and not without 
common sense, etc. (Themis., 289 a). Cf. also Lib., iii. 346, 7; 
Philos., 600. The philosopher in Luc, Hermot., 9, must have 
loaned money to his student. See also p. 331, n. 5. The sophist 
probably felt under moral obligation to give instruction free to 
his poorer students, when he himself was not in need of the fees 
(cf. p. 190, n. 3). 

5 See, for example, Themis., 288 c; Lib., i. 198, 6. Note also 
the case of Proa3resius and Hephaestion (p. 329). 



184 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

have been an influence of counteractive tendency in a 
society that was growing more and more aristocratic 
every day. 

Teaching in the palmy days of sophistry seems to 
have been for many a not unprofitable profession. The 
evidence that this was so is plentiful. 1 We must, how- 
ever, guard against believing that the road of sophistry 
was paved with gold for all. Competition was great, 
and the success of the most distinguished sophists prob- 
ably serves to conceal the fact that there were many 
others whose condition was hardly more than tolerable. 
The profession of the philosopher, unless, like Themis- 
tius, he held an official appointment, was probably less 
remunerative at this time than that of the sophist, for 
the sophist was the incarnation of the university, and 
the halo that hung about his head drew students toward 
his class-room and away from that of the philosopher. 3 

Toward the beginning of the fourth century, owing 
to the high prices that at that time prevailed, Diocletian 
undertook to establish a maximum scale of prices for 
commodities and services. In this scale, the highest fee 
that a sophist was allowed to charge a student was two 
hundred and fifty denarii a month. The denarius, 
originally a silver coin of about the value of the drachma 
(eighteen cents), was, under the system of Diocletian, a 

1 Only a few references can be given. Lollianus made a good 
living out of his teaching (Philos., 527). Many at one time got 
rich by teaching at Antioch (Lib., ii. 215, 6; 421, 7). C/., further, 
Luc, Apol, 15; Philos., 615; and seep. 162, n. 1. But the situa- 
tion was different in the reign of Constantius and toward the end 
of the fourth century (see pp. 112, 119 ff., 191). 

1 Timocles, the Stoic, however, took ixurdobs ovk 6\lyovs (Luc, 
Jup. trag., 27). 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 185 

small copper coin worth between two-fifths and one- 
half of a cent. The sophist was, therefore, at that time 
allowed to charge his pupil a little over one dollar a 
month. This restriction on prices, however, did not 
long remain in force. 1 

Of course, the sophist's income depended in large 
measure on the number of his students. From a few 
intimations we are enabled to gain some idea of what 
the size of the classes was ; as a rule, they appear, in the 
case of the more famous sophists, to have been large. 
Chrestus of Byzantium is said to have had a hundred 
paying pupils at one time. 2 Libanius, at the beginning 
of his career, was promised forty pupils if he would 
set up a school in Constantinople, and, when he actually 
did so, he gathered more than eighty. 3 Afterward, 

1 Until 1890 the value of the Diocletian denarius was uncertain 
and was variously estimated. In that year Mommsen, through 
a valuable discovery recently made, was enabled to determine its 
value as slightly over one and four-fifths pfennigs, German 
money, that is, a little over two-fifths of a cent (Hermes, 25, 
pp. 17-35). For the Diocletian tariff, see Der Maximaltarif des 
Diocletian, Mommsen and Bliimner. Other rates given in this 
tariff for those connected with the teacher's profession are: for 
the teacher of gymnastics (ceromatitce), 50 denarii; for the hired 
pedagogue (pcedagogo), 50 denarii; for the teacher of letters, or 
teacher of lowest grade (magistro institutori litterarum), 50 denarii; 
for the teacher of arithmetic (calculatori), 75 denarii; for the 
teacher of short-hand- writing (notario), 75 denarii; for the teacher 
of the copyist's art (librario sive antiquario), 50 denarii; for the 
'grammarian' (grammatico), 200 denarii; for the geometer (geo- 
metry), 200 denarii; for the teacher of architecture (architecto 
magistro), 100 denarii. In each case the rate was for a single 
student for a month. Bliimner (p. 116) understands that it ap- 
plied, not to those who taught in private houses, but to those 
who set up schools in the city. 

' Philos., 591. Another sophist, three hundred pupils (Schem- 
mel, Neue Jahrb., 22, p. 494). « Lib., i. 24, 15; 29, 7. 



186 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

removing to Antioch, he had in that city, at first fifteen, 
then over thirty, later fifty, and at last so many that, as 
he says, he could not get to the end of them before sun- 
down. 1 With his fifteen pupils Libanius was in despair, 
considering that he was living in idleness. 2 At the time 
of the great riot at Antioch, his class dwindled, first to 
twelve, and then to seven; "but still," he says, 3 "for so 
small a number I continued to go down to the school, 
and I did so just as readily as before." For a number 
less than ten he declined on most occasions to make 
up a class. 4 Philosophers and the less popular soph- 
ists doubtless had to content themselves with fewer 
pupils. 5 

Sometimes, under the stress of competition, sophists 
did not hesitate to resort to unbecoming measures to 
enlarge their classes. We have already seen how the 
rivals of Proseresius tried, by rich banquets and other 
more questionable inducements, to increase their fol- 
lowing and draw students away from Proseresius. 
Occasionally a sophist offered money to those who would 
join his class. Libanius tells of a case of this kind, 6 and 

1 Lib., i. 70, 13; 71, 10; 73, 4; ep., 407. Forster (ed. Lib., i. p. 
133), following Cobet, reads in Lib., i. 71, 10, irXeibvuv 1) 8k 
roaoirmv vtwv, thus eliminating the number thirty. 

> Lib., i. 70, 13. » ii. 272, 6. 4 Lib., ii. 273, 6. 

5 Themis., 30 c. Cf. the jest on Aristeides (Aristeid., iii. p. 741). 

6 i. 45, 11. Men (or was it the sophist Acacius?) were bribed 
by dinners to oppose Libanius (Lib., ep., 418, 443). On one 
occasion Libanius played the following trick on his rival Acacius : 
He sent one of his students to the sophist with instructions to 
pretend that he wished to leave Libanius 's school and join the 
forces of Acacius. The student was warmly welcomed by Aca- 
cius, who allowed himself to be escorted home by the new recruit. 
When the sophist's door was reached, the student bounded off 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 187 

Themistius was accused of buying students at prices 
ranging from a mina to a talent each (from $18 to 
$1,080), a charge which he, however, indignantly denies. 1 
Adrian won the favor of his pupils in more legitimate 
ways : by joining in their sports and drinking-bouts, in- 
stituting hunting expeditions, and celebrating the na- 
tional festivals in their company. 2 

One of those sophists who were inclined to be lenient 
in the matter of fees was Libanius. In the latter part 
of his career he allowed his students to do as they 
pleased with regard to giving payment for their in- 
struction, the understanding being that those who were 
financially able to pay should do so, according to their 
means. Few, however, of the well-to-do students were 
found to act as their consciences should have directed, 
and, as a practical scheme, this honor system fell to the 
ground. Sorrowfully, Libanius acknowledges 3 that it 
is to the advantage neither of the professor nor of the 
student that instruction should be given free. "For," 
says he, 4 "what one can get free, one makes no exertion 
to obtain, and what has cost nothing, one does not 

and joined the forces of Libanius, who were waiting in the neigh- 
borhood, and who greeted the sophist with a shout of laughter 
(Lib., ep., 634). 

1 289 b, 290 c, 291 d, 294 a. Cf. ib., 293 d; Aristeid., ii. p. 532; 
Lib., ep., 407. Sometimes pedagogues would sell their wards to 
the highest bidder (Lib., ep., 407). Libanius tried to put an end 
to this practice. He thought it also unbecoming to canvass for 
pupils (ib., ep., 87). 

* Philos., 587. « i. 199, 3. 

« iii. 441, 12. Cf. Philos., 494. Also J. R. Lowell, Harv. An- 
niv. (Works, vi. p. 170): "Our ancestors believed in education, 
but not in making it wholly eleemosynary. And they were 
wise in this, for men do not value what they can get for noth- 

■7} --^ _- ~_ - — _— > 



188 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

value;" while for him who is engaged in instructing 
youth, thought about material needs clogs the springs 
of the tongue. 1 We cannot help feeling that, in Li- 
banius's case at least, the fear of frightening away stu- 
dents and the difficulty of collecting fees had much to 
do with the sophist's attitude in the matter of charging 
for instruction. The competition for students was, as 
we have seen, keen, and rival sophists were always look- 
ing with malicious glee for signs of discontent in the 
enemy's camp. "But what can I do?" says Libanius, 3 
"expel the students and diminish the size of my class? 
In what way could I give greater satisfaction to Priam 
and the followers of Priam, who are always on the tiptoe 
of expectancy to behold the size of my class diminished 
and the number of my students fewer? I have in my 
time seen a general who, although the men under his 
command were worthless, did still determine to put up 
with the indignity, for fear that his army would fall an 
easy prey to the enemy." It is also clearly evident that 
the poor sophist was often sorely harassed by his in- 
ability to collect his fees. " For this is certainly enough," 
says Libanius in another place, 3 "to stir a man to in-^ 
dignation and make him cease from declaiming: that a 
boy, after receiving money from his father to bring to 
his sophist, should squander this on wine and dice and . 
the pleasures of the body." \J 

Occasionally the distracted sophist or philosopher 
had recourse to the law for the recovery of his debts. 

» ii. 212, 8. * i. 206, 15. 

3 i. 197, 17. See, further, on Libanius and his fees, i. 213, 11; 
ii. 217, 6 ff.; 267, 14; 311, 16. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 189 

Lucian tells us, in an amusing scene, 1 of a philosopher 
who, seizing by the scruff of the neck a pupil who was 
dilatory in the matter of repaying a loan, was for drag- 
ging him off to court, and would have done so, "and 
would," says Lucian, "have chewed his nose from his 
face, had the boy's friends not intervened." Herein the 
philosopher stood, in most cases, by his very profession, 
at a disadvantage, and Lucian is never tired of pointing 
the contrast between principle and practice in the phi- 
losopher who showed anxiety about his debts. The feel- 
ing that gave rise to these gibes was the same as that 
which in time caused the philosophers to be deprived of 
certain of the immunities originally granted to them by 
law — immunities which the other professors continued 
to enjoy as long as their kind existed — and it is an inter- 
esting fact that the attitude of the Roman jurists toward 
the philosopher's profession was exactly that of the 
satirist Lucian. The philosopher was for once taken 
at his word. The famous jurist Ulpian gave it as his 
legal opinion that philosophers should not be given 
judgment by provincial magistrates in cases brought 
for the collection of fees, for the reason that philosophers, 
by their very profession, should scorn mercenary re- 
wards ; 2 and we recollect that Antoninus Pius stated in 
an edict that if philosophers, when called upon to serve 

1 Hermot., 9. Cf. ib., Symp., 32; Juv., vii. 228; Augustin., 
Confess., v. 12. Agathocles, the Stoic, went to law with his pupil 
about his fee (Luc., Icaromen., 16). See also Lib., i. 213, 11; ii. 
423, 11; iii. 446, 12. In Isocrates's time philosophers sometimes 
required the fees to be put in the hands of a third person before the 
instruction began (Isoc, Contra soph., 5). So, in Lucian, the 
sophist demanded a retainer (Luc, Rhet. prcec, 9). 

* Dig., 1. 13, 1. 



190 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the state, made a discussion as to the amount of their 
wealth, they were shown to be no philosophers; l while 
an edict of Valentinian, already referred to, sarcastically 
observed, in directing that all unworthy philosophers 
found in a foreign city should be shipped back to their 
homes, that it was disgraceful if one who professed to 
support the burdens laid upon him by fortune could not 
support those put upon him by the state. 2 One would 
have thought that the jurists and emperors would have 
spared the Peripatetic philosophers at least, for it was 
one of the tenets of this sect that money was a ' good ' 
and was not a thing to be despised. For the rest, this 
feeling that it was a derogation to the philosopher's 
dignity and inconsistent with the philosopher's profes- 
sion that the philosopher should be particular with 
regard to the proceeds of his teaching was probably as 
old as the history of philosophy itself in Greece. It ac- 
counts in a measure for the attitude of Socrates and 
Plato toward the sophists of their time, as men who took 
pay for their instruction, and it appears again in the 
conduct of such men as Diogenes of Sinope. In the 
time of which we are treating, it influenced Themistius 
to waive the salary to which he was entitled, 3 and it ex- 
plains why Apollonius of Tyana should have made it a 
reproach to philosophers in general that they accepted 
any salary at all. 4 It is noteworthy as showing that 
there existed in the world at large a strong tendency to 

* P. 166. * Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 7. 

» Themis., 260 b, 292, 293; cf. 25 c. It was a sign of the greatest 
penuriousness, he says, for a teacher to take money for his teach- 
ing when he did not need it (289 c). 

• Philos., 386, 398; cf. Luc, Nigr., 25. 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 191 

regard the philosopher's profession as something more 
than a profession — as a thing not to be laid aside with 
the issuance from the school-room or the lecture-hall; 
it suggests the reverse of the picture drawn by Lucian. 

As the fourth century wore on, the condition of those 
engaged in the teaching of liberal studies grew worse and 
worse. Latin, law, and short-hand-writing usurped in 
the popular favor the place of oratory and Greek, not 
because the former were in themselves more highly 
prized, but because they were favored by the Court and 
opened the way to influential and paying positions in 
the -state. 1 Many old families, too, that could have 
been depended on to adhere to the old regime, had in 
the course of time become impoverished, and new 
families, with little taste for intellectual pursuits, had 
come to the fore. The classes of the sophist were di- 
minished, while he found it ever harder and harder to 
collect his fees. " Few men nowadays," says Libanius, 
writing in the reign of Constantius, 2 " grow rich by teach- 
ing. Workmen and shopkeepers, sitting at their doors, 
count up the students of the sophist, and reckon that he 
reaps a goodly harvest. But far different is the case. 
The fact that many grew rich by this profession in 
former days makes it seem that many must do so now. 
But times have changed. The study of sophistry is dis- 
honored by those in power, and wealth and considera- 
tion flow from other sources." 

It also becomes year by year increasingly more diffi- 
cult for the poor sophist to collect his regular salary. 

• Lib., i. 133, 134, 143. 

* ii. 214, 23 (paraphrased). Cf. 600, 14. 



192 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

" Sometimes he gets only a part, sometimes none at all, 
sometimes it comes by driblets. And then, the bother 
that he is put to, to get it even so! He must go to the 
governor, or to the governor's attendants, or to the city 
treasurer, and demean himself by fawning upon his in- 
feriors and begging for what is his own, and these are 
actions which, I am very sure, the man of self-respect, 
such as the teacher should be, would almost rather 
starve than do. And then, the meanness of this salary! 
Some call it enough, but I am ashamed to mention how 
small it is." 1 A hard lot altogether is the sophist's in 
these dark years of the reign of Constantius. 

Such was the condition of affairs at Antioch; it could 
not have been much different at Athens. After Libanius 
settled at Antioch and when the darkness and discour- 
agement of the reign of Constantius were nearly at their 
worst, one of the distinguished sophists of Antioch, 
Zenobius, died, and four other sophists (or rhetors) were 
appointed by the city to receive his salary, the single 
salary being divided among the four. Zenobius, during 
his last years, had been in possession of a valuable 
estate, which had been presented to him by the city and 
from which he derived an income that served to sup- 
plement, very respectably, his none too generous salary. 
Libanius, taking Zenobius's case as a precedent, came, 
in the interest of the four sophists, before the local 
council, and begged that a like dispensation might be 
made in their favor. The five formed a sort of school 
— the rhetorical department, or, more probably, one 
section of the rhetorical department, of the Univer- 
1 Lib., ii. 212,. 12 (paraphrased). 



THE PROFESSORS: THEIR PAY 193 

sity of Antioch — with Libanius at its head; he spoke, 
therefore > as one who had a personal interest in the 
welfare of all. Let us, from his description, obtain one 
last glimpse of the sophist's lot at this period: 

Some of these sophists [he says 1 ] do not even have homes 
of their own, but, like cobblers, they live in rented houses. 
Those who have bought houses are still in debt for the pur- 
chase money, and are therefore in worse plight than those 
who have not. One of them has three servants, another 
two, and a third not even two, and the servants are all inso- 
lent and ill-behaved, because they are so few in number. . . . 
This sophist blesses his stars that he has only one child, 
that, having several children, thinks himself in great misfor- 
tune, a third has to be careful that he gets no children, while 
the fourth acts the sensible part and avoids matrimony alto- 
gether. It used to be the case that those who were en- 
gaged in this profession went to the silversmith's and left 
orders for goods, and then, standing by, conversed with 
those who did the work, sometimes finding fault with the 
workmanship, and sometimes pointing out something 
better; sometimes praising those who were quick, and 
sometimes urging on the slow. But these have the most 
of their conversation — and let no one distrust my word — 
with the bakers, not asking for the bread that has been 
promised them or demanding back their money, but mak- 
ing excuses for what they themselves owe. Always saying 
that they will pay, they are always compelled to take more, 
and so, beset by two opposing evils, they have to avoid and 
seek the same persons; for they avoid by reason of their 
debts, and they seek by reason of their needs. . . . Then, 
when the debts have grown to great size and there is noth- 
ing wherewith to pay them, they take their wives' ear-rings 
or bracelets, removing them from their wives' persons, 
and, carrying them to the baker's, leave them in his hands, 

1 ii. 208, 27. 



194 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

cursing, as they do so, the profession of letters. They 
have no time to consider how they shall replace what they 
have taken, for they must think what there is in the house 
that they can go to next. Again, when they have finished 
their lectures, they do not, as they should, straightway 
leave the scene of their labors and go home to rest, but 
they linger and hang about the lecture-hall, for to go home, 
they know, would only be to feel their trouble the more 
keenly. Then they sit down together and talk over in 
sorrow their hard lot, and one, thinking his position the 
worst, hears of even bitterer things from his neighbor. I, 
who am at the head of this school and at the same time a 
native of Antioch, hide my head in shame when I see such 
things. 

Whether Libanius was successful in his petition to 
the council of Antioch, we do not know, but he may 
well have been so, for, although the petition was made 
between the years 355 and 361, during the reign of the 
unenlightened Constantius, Libanius was a sophist of 
great repute and influence in his native city, and what- 
ever request he made was likely to receive favorable 
consideration. 1 

i Lib., ii. 221, 23. 



CHAPTER X 

WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT AND HOW 
THEY TAUGHT IT 

When, about the middle of the fourth century, Pro- 
fessor Himerius, of the University of Athens, welcomed 
to the college cloisters the proconsul Hermogenes, who 
was on a visit to the city and the University, he took 
occasion, in a speech delivered at the time, 1 to describe 
his friend's life and education. Brought up in the 
Court of the emperor at Constantinople, Hermogenes 
had imbibed from his boyhood the principles and beliefs 
of the old faith, before the old faith was proscribed, and 
had received the education which was proper for a youth 
of his condition. On reaching the age of manhood, he 
left the Court, and devoted himself for a number of 
years to the life of a student. First, he studied dialectic, 
and learned how to reason and how to demonstrate, 
and how to distinguish the true argument from the 
false and the specious. Then he turned to the art of 
rhetoric and learned how to add to bare words the 
charm of harmonious discourse. After that he delved 
into the mysteries of philosophy, and mastered the sub- 
ject in its three branches : morals, physics, and theology. 
In this subject he did not stop with one system or one 

1 Or., xiv. 18-30. 
195 



196 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

set of beliefs, but went, from beginning to end, through 
all that had been said and thought by the various 
schools in the different periods of their existence. Neo- 
Platonism, the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, the 
dogmas of the Stoics and the Epicureans — with all 
he became familiar. From philosophy he went to 
astronomy and geography, and, in order to familiarize 
himself with the face of nature, he travelled in nearly 
all parts of the known globe. Finally, political science 
and the art of governing men engaged his attention, and 
here he made use of the Latin as well as the Greek 
tongue. 

The great Christian orator and writer, Gregory 
Nazianzene, tells us, in his account of his friend Basil 
the Great's life, 1 how Basil, when a student at Athens, 
studied and excelled in all branches of academic learn- 
ing. "Who," says Gregory, "was to be compared with 
him in rhetoric, . . . though he had not the rhetori- 
cian's cast of mind ? Who excelled him in philology and 
in the understanding and practice of the Greek tongue ? 
Who gathered more narratives, understood better the 
forms of metre, or laid down the laws of poetry more 
exactly ? Who went deeper into the mysteries of phi- 
losophy, both that high philosophy which holds its face 
upward toward the sky, and that which is speculative 
and is more concerned with the daily actions of life, as 
well as that third kind which deals with demonstrations, 
oppositions, and arguments, and is called Dialectic f 
... Of astronomy, and geometry, and the properties 
of numbers, he obtained such an insight that even with 

1 Or., xliii. 23. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 197 

the best he could hold his own. . . . And with medicine, 
. . . both theoretical and practical, he made himself 
thoroughly familiar." 

From these two accounts we gain some idea of what 
the education of a man of broad and general culture 
was in the fourth century of our era. It may seem sur- 
prising, on first consideration, in view of the prominent 
part which the schools of sophistry played in the educa- 
tion of the day, that so little, comparatively, is made in 
these accounts of the study of rhetoric and eloquence. 
We must remember, however, in the first place, that 
the two men whose education is here described are pre- 
sented to us in the aspect of exceptional cases. It is not 
to be supposed that all, or even a large part, of the 
young men who sought an education in those days 
studied every one of the subjects that these men studied, 
or studied it in the same way. Some, indeed, of these 
branches, as arithmetic, geometry, and others, were 
taught, in an elementary way, in what we should call 
the grammar, or the high, school. As probably studied 
by Basil and Hermogenes, they were more in the line of 
the specialists, the number of whom is always small and 
little in evidence compared to that of the great body of 
studying youth. Mathematics, then, in its various 
branches, astronomy, geography, law, and medicine, 
were, in so far as some of these were not studied in their 
elements in the grammar, or the high, school, either 
graduate or professional studies, while the two great 
departments of academic instruction, those which we 
may consider as constituting the college proper, were 
the departments of sophistry and philosophy. So, Li- 



198 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

banius tells us * that the Emperor Julian, while he was 
yet a young man and before he had become emperor, 
set his mind upon the possession of two jewels, more 
beautiful than royalty itself — philosophy and rhetoric 
(<j>iXo(TO(j)La /cal \6yois). Both of these he acquired and 
mingled in his soul — " the higher power," says Li- 
banius, 2 " through the knowledge of things heavenly, and 
fluency of speech through association with sophists." 
And the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, in speaking 
of the Christian orator John Chrysostom, tells us who 
was his teacher in philosophy and who in rhetoric. 3 
y But, secondly, we have to observe, in connection with 
the education of Basil and Hermogenes, that the phi- 
losophy of the fourth century, in so far as it was taught, 
was probably all, or nearly all, either of the Neo- 
Platonic type or of a type represented by, but greatly 

« i. 375, 14. 2 i. 376, 1. Cf. 409, 3. 

3 vi. 3. Lucian seems to say in a passage that is defective 
(Parasit., 26) that rhetoric and philosophy are generally recog- 
nized to be pre-eminent among the arts, and Philostratus (274) 
represents Apollonius of Tyana as referring to the philosophers 
and the sophists as the dispensers of all wisdom: el y.kv yap ira25& 
<re e&pwv Uti, i-vpeftoijXevov av (potrav 4irl <f>i\o<r6<p(tiv re Kal ao^iardv 
dtipas Kal ao(pla irda-r] ttjv oIkIolv t\\v ceavTov (ppdrreiv. Themistius 
says (303 a) that there are two chambers in the soul, one of which 
is inhabited by rhetoric, the other by philosophy. Cf., further, 
Lib., i. 400, 6. The iyKiJKXios iraidela (fy/cikXict TraideipuxTa, ^y/cikXia 
pM.difip.aT a), 'the common round of subjects,' which every boy was 
supposed to study, seems not always to have included the seven 
liberal arts, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, as- 
tronomy, and music. Maximus of Tyre, to be sure (Diss., 37), 
includes, under the term, philosophy, rhetoric, and even poetics 
(cf. Vitruv., i. 1, 12), but Seneca (ep., 88) makes no mention of 
philosophy and rhetoric, while Theon (Progym., i. p. 146 [Speng., 
Rh. t Gr., ii. p. 59]), and Quintilian (Inst, or., i. 10, 1) restrict the 
name to the elementary subjects, excluding philosophy and rheto- 
ric. Cf. Strabo, i. p. 13. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 199 

inferior to, the philosophy of Themistius, an eclectic 
philanthropism, based on the doctrines of Plato and 
Aristotle, and combined with expositions of those 
authors' works. When Libanius, as just noted, speaks 
of the education of the Emperor Julian, he character- 
izes the philosophy which Julian learned as '' the higher 
power, gained through the knowledge of things heav- 
enly" — that is, as essentially a religion — and, in gen- 
eral, philosophy meant to Libanius the new doctrine of 
Neo-Platonism, which had already taken firm hold upon 
the East, but was only just becoming established at 
Athens. 1 Themistius held an appointment at the Uni- 
versity of Constantinople, and, though we are not ac- 
quainted with the constitution of this University in the 
fourth century, we know that in the fifth century there 
was on its faculty, which included eight sophists, 
twenty 'grammarians/ and two lawyers, but one phi- 
losopher. 8 The chair of philosophy was not a chair of 
any special sect, but it is probable that the incumbent 
thereof busied himself, like Themistius, especially with 
the interpretation of the works of Plato and Aristotle. 
The Academic school, and possibly the Peripatetic, still 
subsisted at Athens in the fourth century, but that 
representatives of the Epicurean and Stoic sects were 
then teaching at Athens or elsewhere, in regular course, 
is hard to believe, though there may have been men here 
and there who professed for a price to expound the lit- 
erature of these schools. 3 So, when it is said that Her- 

1 See, for example, i. 516, 15. 
■ Cod. Th., xiv. 9, 3 (Cod. Jus., xi. 19, 1). 
3 See Themis., 287 a. Themistius often speaks of Plato and 
Aristotle, but rarely refers to philosophers of the Epicurean and 



200 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

mogenes made himself familiar with the systems and 
beliefs of the four schools of philosophy, we are perhaps 
to understand that he gained no small part of his in- 
formation through private reading rather than through 
regular instruction. 

The usual tendency of the fourth century student — 
of the student who was neither, like Basil and Hermo- 
genes, filled with the desire to acquire, in the field of 
knowledge, all that there was to acquire, nor, like the 
scholars of Alexandria and elsewhere, inclined to the 
way of the specialist — was, it is to be feared, to over- 
rate the comparative value of sophistry and to consider 
all other subjects as subsidiary to this; and, indeed, per- 
haps his attitude was but the reflection of that of most 
sophists and of the world at large. Eager to enter as 
soon as possible upon this study, which appealed in so 
popular a way to the aesthetic tastes of the Greek- 
educated peoples, and led to remunerative and influ- 
ential positions in the state, the young student was all 
too apt to neglect those branches which should have 
preceded sophistry. "The old rhetoricians," says the 
rhetorician Theon, 1 "and especially those among them 
who were famous, used to consider that the student 

Stoic sects. Julian says that in his time most of the writings of 
Epicurus and Pyrrho had perished (Frag, ep., 301 C). See pp. 
100 ff. 

1 Progym., 1, p. 145 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. p. 59). Compare with 
this Lucian's humorous account of the way to become a sophist 
(Rhet. prose, 14). It makes no difference, says Lucian, whether 
the preliminary studies are taken or not; one may even skip 
reading and writing. For the value put upon a sophistical educa- 
tion by many fathers, see Lib., iii. 199, 23. They prize it more 
than all wealth, or even than life itself. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 201 

should not approach the study of rhetoric until he had 
gained some knowledge of philosophy and had filled his 
mind with philosophy's inspiring beliefs. Nowadays 
most young men, far from taking up philosophy before 
they come to the study of eloquence, do not even touch 
the ordinary elementary branches, and, worst of all, 
they attempt to handle forensic and deliberative themes 
before they have gone through the necessary preliminary 
training." This probably represents the attitude of 
many people toward education in the second, third, and 
fourth centuries: sophistry, the end and aim of all 
instruction, and every other subject secondary to this. 

Theon, in the passage just quoted, says that it had 
once been considered by rhetoricians the proper thing 
for students to study philosophy before they studied 
rhetoric. The practice in this respect probably varied. 
Libanius heard the philosophers Priscus and Maximus 
while he was studying rhetoric at Athens, 1 while some 
students, especially such as were inclined to specialize 
in philosophy, doubtless took up the subject, or con- 
tinued it, after the completion of their rhetorical course. 
This was the case, as we have seen, with Hermogenes, 
who, however, studied one branch of philosophy, dia- 
lectic, before he reached the rhetorician's course. 

However, even such students as did not go through 
the regular course of elementary subjects probably in 
few cases failed to study under a 'grammarian/ The 
duties of this teacher have been sketched in Chapter II. 
He it was who grounded the young pupil in the language 
and literature of ancient Greece — the poetic literature 
1 Lib., ep., 685, 866. 



202 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

chiefly, though at times perhaps he expounded certain 
prose writers, as, for instance, the historians — and his 
course was introductory to that of the teacher of rhetoric. 
The term 'grammar,' however, as has already been 
explained, was much broader than the term as used in 
English, and the ' grammarian's ' instruction extended 
over many fields. Of the two courses, the course of 
the 'grammarian' and that of the rhetorician, or 
sophist, the former was, in a general way, a course of 
instruction, while the latter was more distinctively a 
course of training; in the former the pupil was taught to 
read and write correctly, and was made acquainted 
with the language, literature, and life of the Greek race; 
in the latter he was trained to individual effort in the 
use of language and argument. These definitions are 
of course not to be considered as wholly exclusive of 
each other: some training in initiative probably accom- 
panied the instruction given by the 'grammarian' in 
reading, writing, and literature, and sometimes the 
'grammarian' anticipated composition subjects usu- 
ally taught by the rhetorician; while, on the other hand, 
the rhetorician's course doubtless contained much that 
was wholly didactic in character. In general, however, 
the distinction here drawn held. 1 

This sophistry, then, that was made so much of in the 
education of those days — what, we have to ask, was its 
nature and how was it taught? Sophistry we may 
roughly define as the art of public speaking— in one word, 

1 For the duties of the ' grammarian ' in the Roman education, 
see Quintilian, Inst, or., Bk. I. Sometimes a boy attended a 
rhetorician while he was still studying under a 'grammarian.' 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 203 

oratory. In so far as training in oratory depended on a 
body of fixed principles and precepts, it involved also a 
study of formal rhetoric, and thus the sophist, when he 
undertook to give a course in sophistry, had a twofold 
task to perform. He had, in the first place, to introduce 
his pupils to the theoretical and technical side of his 
subject, to acquaint them with the various divisions of 
rhetoric, together with the name and meaning of each, 
and he had, secondly, to train them in the art of speak- 
ing readily and fluently. It was this second aspect of 
the subject which was given the greater emphasis in the 
flourishing periods of sophistry, in the second, third, and 
fourth centuries, but in the fifth century, when sophistry 
was in its decline, the art tended to become more and 
more a matter of bare technical detail. Some sophists, 
indeed, in the earlier period, depended more, for the 
formation of their own style and delivery, on natural 
ability and intuition than on the precepts of their art. 
This was the case, we are told, 1 with Polydeuces, and 
Libanius, who in his student days attended more to his 
books than to his professor's lectures, showed in his 
declamations ignorance of technical details which, says 
Eunapius, 3 were familiar to every school-boy. 
Early in the course, we are told, 3 the instructor 

1 Philos., 592. 

1 P. 98. Detractors of Libanius asserted that his success had 
been due to luck and that he had no rhetorical art (Lib., ep., 123; 
cf. ep., 140). Cf. Quint., Inst, or., ii. 11. 

■ Theon, Progym., 2, p. 158 (Speng., Eh. Gr., ii. p. 65). Theon 
has here given us the best ancient description of the course pur- 
sued in the Greek schools of sophistry. The methods of the 
Roman schools were in general those of the Greek schools; there- 
fore, Quintilian's account of the former may help us in forming 



204 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

should, in order to impress upon his students the mean- 
ings of terms, select from the ancient authors good ex- 
amples of the various kinds of discourse, such as the 
fictitious story, the narrative of fact, the eulogy, the 
description, the so-called commonplace, etc., and assign 
these to be memorized. Later he may himself compose 
other examples — examples of ' construction ' and 
1 refutation ' — and set these also before his students. 
Much time, meanwhile, is to be spent in studying the 
ancient authors, Demosthenes, Plato, Homer, Aristotle, 
etc., and, as these are read, either by the student or by 
the instructor, opportunity is found for the discussion 
of the writer's treatment of subject, his point of view, 
his arrangement of material, his language and style, 
and so on, wherein these are good and wherein they 
may be improved. At last, when the students are them- 
selves ready to put pen to paper, they begin by imitating 
the models which they have had set before them, and 
gradually, as they advance under instruction, gain 
greater and greater freedom and self-dependence. Now 
the instructor takes occasion to explain to his students 
the proper arrangement of topics and of proofs, and he 
also tells them when to introduce digressions and when 
to expand, and discourses on the appropriate methods 
of treatment for the different kinds of cases. Remarks 
are also made on vocabulary and style, and the students 
are instructed to avoid rhythmical prose, such as that of 
Hegesias and others, and to strive first of all for dignity 

our estimate of the latter. It is well, however, not to assume too 
great correspondence of detail. Theon's account has here been 
supplemented by a few notices drawn from other sources. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 205 

and clearness. Themes are set for the students to ex- 
pand, first those of the purely declamatory type, after- 
ward those of the deliberative and judicial types. 
Training in elocution follows, and the students are re- 
quired to declaim, sometimes speeches and arguments 
from the authors they have studied, at other times their 
own compositions. 

The instruction here sketched varied, of course, in 
its details, and the really able teacher, we may be sure, 
adapted his methods to the aptitude and ability of the 
individual student. Like Isocrates several centuries 
before, he tried to develop the judgment of his pupils, 
and depended more, for their improvement, on practice 
and example and wise guidance than on the use of fixed 
rules. The necessity of following some such method as 
this was recognized by the educators of those days quite 
fully. "We are not all born with equal aptitude for all 
things," says Theon; 1 "... We should, therefore, 
try to develop our naturally strong points and to make 
amends for our weak points, so that we may be able to 
handle, not large subjects only, like iEschines, or small 
subjects only, like Lysias, but all sorts of subjects equally 
well, like Demosthenes." The practice of one of the 
foremost teachers of the day — Libanius — was quite 
in accord with this precept. "No one of those who con- 
versed with Libanius," says his biographer, Eunapius, 3 
"or were honored with his intimacy, went away un- 
touched. He could recognize a man's character in a 
moment, and see whether the good or the bad pre- 

1 Progym., 2, p. 171 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. 72). 

2 P. 97. Cf. Lib., ep., 358, 1203; Quint., Inst, or., ii. 8, 1-5. 



206 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

dominated in his make-up, and he had equal tact when 
it came to conforming to that man's ways." Of course, 
this character applied to Libanius the teacher as well as 
to Libanius the man of the world. 

In another respect also we have evidence that a wise 
discretion was a part of the ancient educator's outfit. 
" When the written work of the pupil is to be corrected," 
says Theon, 1 " the teacher should not begin by correcting 
all at once every error, large and small, that is on the 
paper. If he does, the pupil is in danger of becoming 
discouraged at the outset, and of thinking that there is 
no prospect of his making any advancement. The 
teacher should first correct a few of the more prominent 
errors, and from these go on at a later time to the more 
minute. When the teacher corrects an error, he should 
at the same time show wherein it consists and in what 
way an improvement in the pupil's work may be made." 
It is refreshing, in the face of the obloquy which has 
sometimes been heaped, in ancient as in modern times, 
on the art of Greek sophistry, to meet such thoroughly 
sensible remarks as these in one of the best of the ancient 
writers on the subject. They show us that, as we might 
have supposed, there were two sides to the matter, and 
that, in spite of Synesius's gibe, to the effect that the 
sophist sits like a jar filled to the brim with wisdom, 2 
he was expected to dispense his wisdom in a judicious 
and rational way. 

In order to obtain an idea of the thoroughness of the 
sophistical training, we may take one of the various 

1 Progym., 2, p. 171 (Speng., Rh. Gr. t ii. p. 72) paraphrased. 
» Dion, 13. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 207 

forms of discourse used in the sophist's school-room 
and see how the subject was there treated. Let this be 
the "fable" (/jlvOos). This is described by Theon l as 
"a false narrative presenting the semblance of truth" 
(\6yo<; tyevSr)? elfcov%(ov a\i]0eiav). In the first place, 
the student was taught the appropriate style for a 
fable. This differed from the style of any other kind of 
discourse and was distinguished by the characteristics of 
simplicity, naturalness, lack of artificiality, and clear- 
ness. The student would recognize the appropriateness 
of these characteristics, because he had already mem- 
orized examples of the fable, taken from the best au- 
thors. Secondly, the form of the story came under con- 
sideration. The student was taught to tell the story, 
at one time in direct narrative, as a piece of his own 
knowledge or experience, at another time in indirect 
narrative, as if on another's authority. In the Greek 
language, of course, this difference of form involved a 
difference of case, mood, person, etc. Sometimes, to 
compass an air of unaffectedness, the two forms were 
combined in one fable. After the student had thus 
learned to construct the fable in the correct style and 
form, he was taught to make proper application thereof. 
Thus, given a certain fable, as, for instance, that of the 
camel which, wishing for horns, lost even his ears, he 
must find an occurrence in history which, in its main 
features, resembled this, such as the case of Croesus, 
who lost even the kingdom which he had, while striving 
for one that was larger; and, vice versa, if he was given 

1 Progym., 3, p. 172 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. p. 72). 



208 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

a fact of history, he was to find a fable that would apply 
thereto. Again, he was required to draw a moral from 
a given fable, or, if the moral was given, to construct a 
fable from which it might be drawn. Further, he was 
taught how to expand and how to contract fables. To 
expand, he might, for instance, lengthen his descrip- 
tions or insert more narrative matter, and to con- 
tract, he might follow the opposite course. Finally, his 
work was examined, as a whole and in detail, with 
reference to various qualities, such as clearness, plausi- 
bility, dignity, consistency, order, and relevancy of 
parts. 

The fable, it should be remembered, was only one of 
a variety of forms of discourse which received similar 
treatment to this. Some of these have been already 
mentioned — the narrative of fact, the fictitious narra- 
tive, the eulogy, the description, the commonplace, etc. 
One of the most striking facts in connection with this 
instruction is the emphasis that was laid in it on the 
study of literary style. It may be doubted whether there 
has ever been another period of the world's history when 
the youthful student has been taught with such syste- 
matic thoroughness to distinguish between the different 
qualities that should characterize the different forms of 
discourse. That the style of the fable should differ from 
the style of the narrative of fact, and that the eulogy and 
the description should be constructed in different 
moulds, with different words, different constructions, 
and a different literary atmosphere, are truths which we 
all recognize and which instinct teaches the artist to 
apply, but they represent a stage of literary nicety to 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 209 

which, it is to be feared, our instruction does not in the 
main strive to attain. 1 

Two of the most important exercises to which the 
ancient student was subjected were the * refutation ' 
and the * construction ' so-called (avaaicevri and /ca- 
raaicevrj). "In these exercises," says the rhetorician 
Aphthonius, 3 "is contained the whole force of the soph- 
ist's art." The ' refutation* was the argument attack- 
ing, the ' construction ' the argument supporting, a 
given statement or story. The two arguments followed 
certain fixed lines, and were conducted on the basis of 
clearness, possibility, dignity, consistency, and advan- 
tage. We have the briefs for the plaintiff and the de- 
fendant in a case in which the Daphne-Apollo legend is 
at stake. 3 The 'refutation' must begin, we are told, 
with a depreciation of those who are the authors of the 
story, in this case the poets. Following the depreciation 
comes a statement of the story itself, and then the argu- 
ment. The story is incredible, (1) because it is obscure. 
For what union of the Earth and a river can we conceive 
of ? An overflowing of the Earth by the river's waters ? 
Then are all rivers men. Can man beget a river, as 
a river, man ? Wedlock is of bodies that have sensation, 
but the Earth has no sensation. Furthermore, how 
could Daphne be the daughter of the Earth and a river ? 
We must suppose either that Daphne was a stream or 

1 Quintilian (Inst, or., i. 9; ii. 1) says that the Latin 'gram- 
marian ' frequently anticipated a part of the work of the rhetori- 
cian and taught in a simple way some of the exercises referred to 
above. Apparently this practice was less frequent among the 
Greeks. 

" Progym., 5, p. 72 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. p. 28); 6, p. 77 (#>., p. 30). 

3 Aph., 5 and 6, pp. 72-80 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. pp. 27-32). 



210 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

that the river was a mortal. (2) Because it is impossi- 
ble. Granted that Daphne was born of the Earth and 
a river, how could she have been brought up ? Either in 
the water, in which case she would have been drowned, 
or under the earth, in which case she would not have 
been seen by Apollo. (3) Because it lacks dignity. It 
is beneath the dignity of a god to fall a victim to love. 
(4) Because it is inconsistent. Gods are superior to 
mortals; how, then, could Apollo have been outwitted 
by a woman among mortals? Also, why should the 
Earth have defended her daughter from Apollo? If 
wedlock is an evil, how was the Earth herself born ? If 
it is a good, she unjustly deprived Daphne of what 
would have been to the latter's advantage. Either, 
therefore, the Earth was never born, or, being born, 
she was evil. (5) Because it is objectless. For why 
did the Earth act so contradictorily? She pained 
Apollo by saving him, but she also deluded him by lead- 
ing him on. Again, she united the laurel-branch, a 
symbol of pleasure, which is fleeting, with virtue, which 
is the opposite of pleasure, and with prophecy, which 
is perennial. The case for the defence, following the 
same lines as the case for the prosecution, begins with 
a laudation of the originators of the story, and then 
proceeds to the argument, supporting the story on the 
basis of its clearness, possibility, dignity, consistency, 
and advantage. 

/The sophist Choricius, in eulogizing the class-room 
methods of his teacher Procopius, says: 1 "Not a word 
that was not Attic escaped his notice, not a thought that 

1 P. 5. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 211 

wandered from the point, not a construction that was 
inharmonious, not a syllable that jarred on the ear. It 
would have been easier for one, striking a wrong note 
on the cithara, to escape the notice of Arion of Me- 
thymna, or of the Lesbian Terpander, than for one who 
spoke a word out of tune to have done so unobserved 
by him." These words contain in brief a statement of 
the chief aim of the sophistic training: to teach ap- 
propriateness and orderliness of thought (inventio and 
dispositio), and purity and elegance of language (elo- 
cutio), under the latter being included choice of words 
and style. Again and again, in the descriptions of the 
sophist's trade, are these two features — thought and 
expression — combined. 1 One of the chief means em- 
ployed to this end was the study of the ancients. Demos- 
thenes, Plato, Thucydides, Isocrates, Lysias, iEschines, 
Homer, Hesiod, Aristotle, and even Aristophanes and 
the tragedians, were read and reread, learned by heart, 
discussed, and analyzed, in the schools.* So important 

1 E. g. y Syn., Dion, 4: irepirrbs dvrjp eiireiv re Kal f vulvar 
Choric, p. 14: detvbs ra dtovra yv&vai Kal \ap.irpbs tpp.yvevffar 
also Luc, Rhet. prase, 1; Philos., 498, 511, 527, 544. Cf. Thuc, 
ii. 60, 5. It was, we remember (p. 5), in the careful adjustment 
of these two, the thought and the form, that the literary excel- 
lence of the earlier Greeks consisted. A third feature, subsidiary 
to the other two, but also an integral part of the art, was the 
delivery (pronuntiatio), which included the management of the 
voice, gestures, etc. 

* See Jul., ep., 42, p. 423 A; Lib., i. 179, 15; 202, 2; iii. 438, 10, 
24; 439, 15; ep., 828; Themis., 289 c; Luc, Rhet. prose, 17; 
Philos., 518. Sometimes complaints were made that the pupils 
lingered too long over a single book (Lib., ii. 273, 1; cf. Themis., 
289 a; Lib., ep., 812). For the &fu\\ai (Lib., ep. y 246, 286, 407), 
engaged in by both students and teachers, see Sievers, Leben des 
Lib., p. 24, n. 78, and Schemmel, Neue Jahrb., 20, p. 61. The 



212 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

a part in the sophistic training did study of these authors 
play, that the sophist was sometimes described as the 

dfitXKa seems to have been an argument based on a passage or 
passages of an author, in which the speaker took a stand opposed 
to that of the author (see Luc., Parasit., 58). Sometimes the 
students studied more modern authors, as Aristeides. Libanius 
recommends his own letters (ep., 954), and says that his own 
speeches were studied in the schools (i. 103, 15). On one occa- 
sion Libanius received a letter from a friend during school hours, 
and he read the letter to the class instead of going on with the 
lesson (ep., 128). At another time, receiving a letter, he con- 
versed with his pupils about the sender (ep., 607). Epistle- 
writing was one of the subjects taught in the schools. We obtain 
here and there in the authors a few glimpses of the class-room 
and of class-room methods. Once, when the students were not 
present, one of the boys came to Libanius and recited his own 
composition, about which some discussion had arisen. At first 
they both stood, Libanius near the door, and the boy apparently 
on the platform, in the rear of the room. After the boy had read 
about two hundred lines, they both became seated, each at his 
own desk (ib., i. 238, 4). Libanius's students gave 'displays,' 
and after a 'display' of this sort school was dismissed for the 
rest of the day (ib., ii. 267, 7, 16; 268, 11; 280, 15; cf. Themis., 
312 b). This was done as a mark of honor to the boy who de- 
claimed, and was customary (ib., ii. 267, 16: r<£ re o5u <iXXa TtfAav 
ainbv iraprjvei t£ /xrjdtv irpoaTedrjvoa rots Sedeiy/xivois \byois, ical 
vbfios 9jv dpx^os tovto ovTws €X €LV £d£\u)v ib., 268, 3: tovto 8£ 
ffv, fxrjdtv krepov rots vtt6 tov viov pr)deio~iv tTrturevtyKelv). In general, 
for one orator to speak after another, tir 1 dXXy, /oer' ctWov, seems to 
have involved some disrespect toward the latter. Hippodromus, 
being requested to give a display after one of his pupils, refused, 
saying, ovk iirairobiaopuan rots ipuavrov airXdyxvois (Philos., 617). A 
similar honor was paid by Herodes to Polemo: cSw/ce t<£ Uo\4fuavt 
6 "H.pd)5r)s kclI rb firj TapeKdeiv iir 1 clvtQ is \6yuv iirlbetl-iv, firjb 1 
iirayuviaaa-dat ol (ib., 538). Libanius objected to a poet reciting 
after him a poem on the same subject on which he had himself 
just delivered a speech: fiij /ier' ijx.4 ris iirl tois ftrois 2£ei rbv abv 
&de\<p6v (Lib., ii. 372, 19; cf. 23). The words after Libanius, at- 
tached to the announcement, were especially objectionable: 
irpoadivra roi/Ty rb /act' ifxi (ib., ii. 373, 3). Cf., further, lb., ii. 
376, 14: iirrjyep tiri) rots elpijfiipots \6yoi.s, and 377, 15: rb riva ehat 
rbv iir' ip.ol \4%ovra- also ib., ii. 281, 2: d>5 iirl p.f]bevl irerrpayixhy, 
and Luc, Charid., 13. Students took notes of their lectures 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 213 

one who led young men to a knowledge of the ancients; 1 
and constant conning of the classic authors was said to 
be essential for the good speaker. 2 To assist the teacher 
and the student in their cultivation of Attic style, hand- 
books of Attic words and constructions, such as those 
referred to in the first chapter of this book, were pre- 
pared. 

The sophistical education aimed at preparing young 
men for the professions and pursuits of active life, both 
public and private. The judge, the advocate, the sen- 
ator, the ruler of provinces, the city magistrate, all 
received their training, before the time when Christian- 
ity and the altered favor of the imperial Court drove 

(Luc, Hermot., 2; Lib., ii. 293, 16; cf. Quint., Inst, or., i. praefat., 7; 
ii. 11, 7). Sometimes they went through the streets studying 
their lessons or thinking up questions to ask their teacher (Luc, 
Hermot., 1). Occasionally they interrupted the teacher with 
objections (ib., 13; cf. Plut., De red. rat. aud., 4, 10, 18). Some- 
times the work of other teachers was taken up for criticism, and 
the philosophers at times discussed the tenets of other sects 
and showed their weak points (Luc, Hermot., 32). The philoso- 
pher Taurus used to give his students an opportunity to ask 
questions at the close of his lecture (Gell., i. 26). When the 
professor lectured, or read, to his students, he was said iiravayvuvat, 
(Epictet., i. 10, 8). In ep., 812, Libanius gives the account of his 
work in class for four months. Herodes, in addition to his regular 
lectures, held a privatissime (rb K\e\pti8piop), to which his ten 
most promising students were invited. At these lectures a water- 
clock was set for the length of time required to recite a hundred 
lines, and these Herodes recited at a stretch, first requesting his 
students not to interrupt by applause. The members of this 
seminar were called by outsiders Thirsters, drfuvres (Philos., 
585, 586, 594). 

1 Lib., ii. 207, 11: r)yotip.epoi. rots p^ois iirl ttjp ypQcriP rdv apxalwP' 
Choric, p. 4: 5i/o yap 8pto}p ofj apery) PaaavLferai (Tcxpurrov, rod re 
KaTdTrX^TTeip ra dtarpa avve'crei \6yojp Kal /cdXXei, rod re toi)s p4ovs 
(av<tt ay ay e?p tois tup dpxatup dpyiois. Cf. Jul., ep., 42; Lib., ep., 367. 

* Lib., ii. 289, 19; 291, 25; 292, 2; 294, 23; 295, 6. 



214 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

sophistry into exile, in the sophist's class-room. 1 Such 
being the case, we should expect to find in this training 
a wise adaptation of methods to the requirements of 
life, and in this expectation we are not deceived. 

A central point in the Greek sophistical education 
was the training of the memory. The Greek student of 
eloquence was required to learn by heart large quan- 
tities of the ancient authors, as well as many of his own, 
and his professor's, compositions. Discourse on com- 
mon topics, such topics as would frequently arise in the 
course of the student's professional career, was also 
prepared and given to be memorized. By this process 
not only was the memory of the student, or, at least, the 
skill with which the student used his memory, improved, 
but his mind was filled with a ready store of material 
and illustration. We remember the famous tour de 
force of Proseresius — how on one occasion, after de- 
livering an extempore oration on a subject just pro- 
pounded to him, he turned to the short-hand-writers at 
his side, and, telling them to observe carefully what 
they had taken down, astounded all his hearers by re- 
peating, word for word, without making a single slip, 
the whole speech from beginning to end. 2 This feat, 
which was not unique, fairly put the audience into 
raptures of delight. Eunapius says of himself that 
when he arrived at Athens, at the age of sixteen, he had 
the ancients at his tongue's end, 3 and a similar statement 

» See p. 78, n. 1. 

'See p. 157. Cf. Pliny, ep., ii. 3, 3 (of Isaeus); Quint., Inst, 
or., x. 6, 4; xi. 2; Cic, De or., ii. 74 and 86; Sen., Contr., i. 
praefat., 2, 3, 17-19. 

« P. 75. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 215 

is made with regard to the philosopher Priscus. 1 The 
importance attached by the sophists themselves to the 
cultivation of the memory is suggested by the anecdote 
that is told of Polemo. 2 Polemo once, seeing a robber 
of many misdeeds writhing on the rack and hearing the 
officer who was in charge of the culprit remark that he 
knew not what punishment was good enough for the 
man, said, "Order him to commit to memory the writ- 
ings of the ancients." " For Polemo," says Philostratus, 
"although his own mind was stored with matter, con- 
sidered that the hardest thing of all in the sophistic 
training was learning by heart." The students of Diony- 
sius of Miletus were famed in their day for their good 
memory, and some people even went so far as to say that 
Dionysius made use in his teaching of mnemonic arts 
derived from the Chaldaeans. 3 But this allegation 
Philostratus denies, accounting for the good memory of 
Dionysius's students on the simple ground of practice 
and constant repetition. "There are no arts of mem- 
ory," says Philostratus, "nor could there be, for memory 
gives us arts, but it is itself unteachable; nor is it to be 
acquired by any art; it is a gift of nature and a part of 
the imperishable soul." 

In active life the advocate must at all times be pre- 
pared to defend either side of a case, and, whichever 
side he defends, to look at his own as his adversary's, 
and his adversary's as his own. This was the exact 
method employed in the preparation furnished by the 

■ Eunap., p. 65. » Philos., 541. 

» Philos., 523. Cf. ib., 618; Syn., Dion, 11. On cultivating the 
memory in children, see Plut., De lib. educ., 13. 



216 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

sophistic schools. Fictitious cases, drawn, when not 
wholly general in character, from the ancient history 
and mythology, were constructed, and the students were 
required to defend first one side and then the other. 
Sometimes these cases were those of actual or probable 
occurrence, but often they were purely imaginary, and 
at times most ingeniously intricate in construction. 
Thus, there is a law to the effect that, when a tyrant is 
slain, his children shall be slain with him. There is 
another law which grants to tyrannicides whatever they 
may ask. A woman who is married to a tyrant kills her 
husband and then asks for the possession of her chil- 
dren. The student is to plead the cause of the woman. 1 
The Potidseans, being besieged by the Athenians, have 
been driven by hunger to taste one another's flesh. The 
Athenians are accused by the Corinthians of impiety. 
The student is to argue the case for the Corinthians.' 
There is a law at Lacedaemon that no one under thirty 
shall speak in the public assembly. After the battle of 
Leuctra, the Thebans send ambassadors to the Lace- 
daemonians, threatening war if the Lacedaemonians do 
not grant independence to Messene. Some advise com' 
pliance with the Theban demand, but Archidamus, a 
young man, speaks in favor of war. His counsel pre- 
vails, and the enemy are defeated. Then Archidamus 
is indicted on a charge of illegal action. The student is 
to support the cause of Archidamus. 3 Judicial themes 
were considered the most difficult kind of themes, and 
were therefore given to the student last of all. He was 

i Lib., iv. 798. l Lib., iv. 348. « Lib., iv. 420. 



WHAT THE SOPHISTS TAUGHT 217 

first trained in declamatory and deliberative themes. 1 
In many cases, it will be noticed, the student was re- 
quired to put himself into the position of another person 
and to imagine what that other person's thoughts and 
emotions would be in a given set of circumstances. 
Sometimes actual impersonation was demanded. Cimon, 
son of Miltiades, pleads before the Athenian people to 
be allowed to take his father's place in prison ; 2 Patro- 
clus tries, by tears and reproval, to reconcile Achilles to 
the Grecian host; 3 Timon, in love with Alcibiades, 
brings an accusation against himself in the Athenian 
senate. 4 These are situations for which the student is 
required to find expression in words and in action. 
The last case, the treatment of which involves a recon- 
ciliation of conflicting emotions, is one of a large class 
of cases. Libanius, from whose collection it is taken, 
says with regard to it, in his introductory remarks: 
"This is a difficult theme, for the student has to repre- 
sent two antagonistic characters, the misanthrope and 
the lover. Care must be taken not to introduce thoughts 
that are inappropriate to either character. The misan- 
thrope, however, must in the end prevail over the lover." 
Much was also made in the sophistic training of ex- 
tempore speaking, but the display of this accomplish- 
ment we can better observe in the grand show declama- 
tions of the sophists themselves; and to these we now 
turn. 

1 Theon, Progym., 1, 151 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. 61); Tac, Dial, de 
or., 35. See Volkmann, Rhetorik, p. 293. 

* Lib., iv. 335. »Lib., iv. 80. 'Lib., iv. 181. 



CHAPTER XI 

PUBLIC DISPLAYS 

In the preceding chapter we have touched upon one 
side of the sophist's profession — the purely pedagogic, 
or class-room, side. The more picturesque side was 
brought into view when the sophist himself came for- 
ward as the interpreter of his own art. 1 This took place 
on various occasions. Libanius made it a practice, at 
one period of his life while teaching at Antioch, to give 
a public display of his art at regular intervals, during the 
winter and spring months, those being the months when 
college was in session and the town was full of students. 2 
During the long vacation, in summer and early autumn, 
sophists had an opportunity of travelling about from 
place to place, and then often friendly contests were in- 
stituted. 3 Sometimes the governor of a province or 
other magistrate, while passing through a town, would 

1 The two most important duties of the sophist were to hold 
public displays and to introduce boys to the ancients, that is, 
to teach (see the quotation from Choricius, p. 213, n. 1). 
- " Lib., i. 196, 7; 199, 10. Cf. ep., 1292. He gave displays in 
summer also (ib., ep., 394 a). At Antioch, when a display was 
given, there seems to have been a general holiday among the 
sophists, so that all students could attend (ib., ii. 279, 11). It 
may have been under some such regulation as this that Libanius 
heard three sophists at Athens (ib., i. 14, 5; see p. 304). 

8 See pp. 256 ft. Cf. Eunap., p. 17; Lib., i. 176; ep., 394 a. 
Sometimes the contest was not so friendly (Eunap., pp. 81, 86). 

218 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 219 

call upon a distinguished sophist to give a sample of his 
eloquence, or he would travel a long distance to see and 
hear one who was famous. Even emperors, on occasion, 
visited the sophist's hall or gave a hearing at the Court. 1 
Generally the displays were open to the public, but 
/ at times, as when they were given by special request, 
for the benefit of a prince or high official, they were held 
before limited audiences. Libanius, in the latter part of 
his career, finding that the people complained of the 
number of his speeches, excluded the public on these 
occasions, though he had earlier admitted them. 2 
Sometimes invitations were sent out several days before 
the declamation was to be held, or servants were de- 
spatched through the town, to ' round up ' the students 
and bring them to the lecture. 3 The students, it is clear, 

1 This was done by Hadrian and others of the early emperors, 
and also by some of those of the fourth century. The Emperor 
Julian, when he visited Antioch for the purpose of taking up the 
war in the East, inquired first of all for the sophist Libanius, 
and, when he saw Libanius, his first words were; "When shall I 
hear you speak?" (Lib., i. 81, 22). On one occasion a provincial 
governor, whose official residence was at Antioch, sent to Liba- 
nius, requesting a sample of his art, but Libanius refused to speak 
unless the governor would leave the palace and come to his 
(Libanius's) lecture-room (ib., i. 77, 4). A similar story is told 
of Polemo, who once, by repeated refusals to speak, actually 
compelled a certain magistrate, high in power, to come to his 
door with a gift of ten talents ($10,800) and a prayer for recogni- 
tion (Philos., 535). 

* Lib., i. 180, 1. Maximus held di)fio<rlas iiri8eL£eu (Eunap., p. 
61; cf. Himer., or., xvii). iv 6fil\<p koip$ (Lib., ep., 25). Cf. 
ib., ep., 244, 964. A speech delivered before an audience of four 
(ib., ep., 31); with closed doors (ib., ep., 286); the audience limited 
to fifteen by request (ib., i. 50, 12). 

• Invitations sent out three days beforehand (Themis., 313 d); 
the day beforehand (ib., 243 a). Servants sent to 'round up' 
the students (Lib., i. 199, 11; cf. Philos., 589). The sophist some- 



220 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

were, in Libanius's later years, not always ready to 
come, but in the 'good old days' of sophistry they 
needed no urging, if the sophist was distinguished, but 
flocked to the lecture-hall in throngs. 1 

Generally, at least at Antioch, no fee was charged for 
admission to these lectures. 2 Occasionally a sophist 
made it, in the case of a wealthy patron, a condition of 
speaking, that the patron should reward him with a 
substantial gift, 3 while in other cases the patron was 
quite ready to testify unasked to his regard for the 
sophist. At Athens an admission fee may sometimes 
have been charged. 4 

times went personally to invite his friends (Syn., Dion, 11). Au- 
diences were collected by flattery (Lib., i. 62, 16). See also ib., 
ep.,173, 546, 1292. Jealousy was sometimes caused if a person was 
overlooked when the invitations were sent out (ib., i. 205, 18; 
iii. 446, 9). It was considered an honor to receive an invitation 
(ib., ep., 173). Libanius sought to stifle jealousy by multiplying his 
displays (ib., ep., 394 a). He says in one place that he is con- 
stantly requested, even during the summer, to give displays, and 
that he has invited the whole city to a display (ep., 1292; cf. 1296). 
The word used for 'sending an invitation,' 'inviting,' is icaXtut 
(ib., i. 199, 11); for 'collecting an audience,' ayeipio (Themis., 
282 d). Aristeides says (ii. p. 575) that it is a degradation of the 
sophist's profession to go about drumming up an audience. 

1 Lib., i. 199, 7. People were also backward about coming to 
Aristeides's displays at Smyrna (Aristeid., ii. pp. 573, 579). 
Aristeides, however, was not an extempore speaker, and he was 
not much in favor with the people (Philos., 581, 582). 

* Lib., i. 200, 18. 

8 See the case of Polemo (Philos., 535). 

4 The question turns on our understanding of the following 
passages of Philostratus: 519: rhs dt fiektras pnadov fxkv iiromTo, 
6 5t /xurdbs ?jv tfXXos &\\ov ical ws 2 Karros otnov elx ev ' 527: puo~doi>s 8t 
yevvalovs iirpdrrero ra$ cvvovaias ov ixeXeTijpas p.bvov, dXXA K<xl 
SiSaaKaXiKas irapix^ 1 '' 604: tcl St tt)s fxeXtrris irdrpia rip dvSpl Toirip 
diiKCiro (S5e* €KO.tov 5p<xxM<*s a7ra£ KarafiaXbvTi ei-ijv aKpoavdai rbv 
del XP^ V0V - % v 8& a.vT$ ml Qi]Kt\ pifiXltou itrl rijs olidas, Siv nerijv rots 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 221 

In these public, or semi-public, displays the student 
had the opportunity of seeing illustrated the principles 
which he had been taught in the class-room. The dis- 
plays were, in fact, primarily designed to supplement 
the class-room instruction, and they formed a regular 
part of the sophisms course. In them the sophists 

£v\\eyo/x4vois is rb irX^pu/xa ttJs aKpod&eios. Were the public ad- 
mitted to these /ieX^rat, which were primarily for the students, 
or not, and, if they were, did they, as well as the students, 
have to pay? fieXirrj generally suggests a public display. 
On the whole, however, it seems probable that the displays 
here referred to were not public, but that there were others 
given more especially for the benefit of the public, for which no 
charges were made (see, e. g., ib., 571, 572, 579, 617). The 
inference from the wording of the second passage may be that 
the less advanced and more mechanical part of the course — 
that part which consisted strictly of teaching — as distinguished 
from the more advanced and elocutionary part — the displays 
— was at this time not usually given by the sophist himself, but 
by an assistant. This view is supported by the statement of 
Quintilian (Inst, or., ii. 1, 1 ff.) that rhetoricians had come to 
think it their business simply to declaim and to teach the art 
and practice of declaiming, leaving the more elementary parts 
of their subject to the ' grammarians. ' (That a distinction 
was sometimes made between practising the sophist's profession 
and teaching, is clear from Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, 9: £av yap Kofiaveiis 
&v £v NeoKaurapeLa <ro<peaTevrj fj depaTre&rj -j) 5i8d<riqi . . .). Indeed, 
it is not improbable that the sophists of the second and third 
centuries gave much of their instruction through examples — that 
is, in the form of displays (cf. Brandst 'tter, Hermes, 15, pp. 239, 
240. Therefore, possibly the 7rcu5eim/cds dpdvos of Eunapius, p. 95, 
refers, not to the chief sophistical chair at Athens, but to a sub- 
ordinate chair; see p. 142, n. 3). If this view is correct, it will 
account for the use of the word neXirT] in the other passages. 
Compare also the verb in Philos., 528, 529; and see the case 
of Libanius's school at Antioch (p. 271, n. 1). The usual words 
for the association of teacher and student are avpovo-ia (ib., 604), 
and 6fju\la (Porphyr., Vit. Plotin., 5), while aKp6a<ri$, which, 
with iirlde&s (see below), is commonly used of public displays 
(e. g., Philos., 586, 589; Lib., i. 199. 11), is also used of the sophist's 
course in general (e.g., Philos., 615: yrjbiov . . . iuvrjiihov £k twv 



222 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

brought into play all the arts and devices of the sophistic 
trade. 1 It is important that we gain an idea of what 
these displays were like, for on these occasions the 
sophist appeared in his moments of greatest triumph. 

aKpo&creuv • 606: i)<plei roirois rbv /xurdbv rrjs d/cpodtrews). So, the 
noun 6.Kpoa.T"f)s and the verb dicpodofjiai (ib., 579, 583; p. 343, below). 
ixeXtrr) is used with reference to the kind of speech and is often 
contrasted with 5«£Xe£is (e. g., ib., 592, 593). The two were dis- 
tinct in style and treatment. The xXdo-pura of Lib., i. 275, 8, 
were probably fte\irat (cf. ib., ep., 407). Menander (see below) 
speaks of the fxeXirrju dydvuv, and dyibp is also used (Philos., 
514), as well as Xbyuv dyihv (Lib., ep., 367), 6 Kara pxKiTrjv dyihv 
{ib., ep., 574), and 6 virep fieXirris dydv (Philos., 601). a-rrovd^ is 
used of teaching (ib., 587). neXirrj, of course, referred primarily 
to a prepared speech or exercise, and it is sometimes contrasted 
with extempore speech (ib., 628), but it is also sometimes used 
to include extempore speech (ib., 570: t&s /xiv oftv fieXiras 
avroo'x^biovs iiroieiTO' 514: t&s be fieXiras ovk avroaxcSlovs iiroteiro' 
cf. also 619; 604: ij neXirr) be k. t. X.; the verb in 626), and it was 
the common word used for the deliberative or the controversial 
speech, extempore or prepared, delivered on the occasion of a 
display (Volkmann, Rhetorik, p. 361, therefore, is to be corrected). 
iirlSei^is is commonly used of a public display (Lib., i. 199, 8). Stu- 
dents also gave i-mbeLfas either in public or before the whole school 
(p. 211, n. 2; see also Themis., 304 a). The rhetorician Menander 
(Speng., Rh. Gr., iii. p. 331) would seem to restrict the word to the 
yivos iirtdeiKTucbv (As yap iiribell-eis Xbywv ttoXltik&v ol aotpiaral 
KaXofifiepot iroiovvrai, fieXirrjv dy&vtav elval <pap\ev, ovk iirlbei^iv). So 
the word is used in Choric, p. 125. Originally, of course, it had 
this meaning, but when the yivrj btKaviKbv and cvpLfiovXevTiKbv 
became a part of the sophist's stock in trade and took on a ' dis- 
play' character (seep. 74, n. 2), it was made to include these 
also. So Philos., 626: dvddes /jloi Kaipbv is iirlbeil-ip fieXirrjs (also ib., 
619), and then without ueXirjjs (ib., 537: is t&s ^ri5e/|eis). iirlbeifa 
Xbywv is also found (ib., 539). iirlbei^ts was sometimes used of the 
5u£\e£is (Himer., or., vi. 1). In Philos., 579, it is used of both the 
5id\ei-is and the fieXirij. 

'Choric, p. 5: iiroiei 8e tovto iroXXdKis els eptara \byuv iyelpwv 
tovs viovs- Lib., ii. 280,2: 6 Xiyuv A xp^j /it/iet<r0cu • ib., ii. 280, 
10: ovkovv Kal 8<ttis idiXei Troirjcrai p^ropas, irapexiTia tols tovto 
bvvT)(rop.ivois eavrbv Trapdbeiyfxa Kal rbv fiev ov fiovXbfxevov Xiyeiv 6 vios 
dirobibpao'Ke'TU), rbv be Kal iroLovvra Kal beiKviovra \6yovs duaKiru. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 223 

Generally the sophist, especially if he came from for- 
eign parts and was a stranger in the city where he was 
about to declaim, introduced his main discourse by a 
short speech designed to conciliate his auditors' good- 
will. 1 This introductory speech might, of course, take 
any form, but it usually contained a few words in praise 
of the city and depreciatory of the speaker's ability. 2 
Sometimes a short narrative was introduced and the 
moral drawn that the audience should receive the 
speaker with favor. 3 

The introductory speech finished, the sophist then 
proceeded to the matter in hand. This might be (1) a 
StaXeft?, 4 a more or less informal discourse, in the 
nature of a talk, on any subject of popular interest, such 
as the sophist's art, 5 or, possibly, on some more phil- 
osophical theme or a theme of ethical interest; 6 or it 

1 Called \a\i&, or, more distinctively, irpo\a\t&, or, from its 
character, 5<c£Xe£is (Forster, in Rhein. Mils., 49, pp. 481 ff.); also 
irp6\oyos (Choric, p. 200; see Forster), and irpoay&v (Eunap., 
pp. 82, 101). Examples are Lucian's Dream, Herodotus, Zeuxis, 
Hercules, etc. See Themis., 329 d. Libanius mentions a sophist 
who made a reputation on his prologues (i. 210, 5). People 
learned Libanius 's prologues by heart, and perhaps sang them 
(ib., i. 40, 12; 63, 9). Libanius 's students used to applaud so much 
that they broke the connection of the discourse, and he urged 
them in a prologue to reform their ways (ib., i. 179, 17). 

'Philos., 535, 572; Lib., i. 276, 15. 

8 As in the irpo\a\ial of Lucian. Sometimes the sophist was 
introduced (Aristeid., ii. p. 534). See, however, Rohde, Gr. 
Rom., p. 336, n. 5. Libanius was introduced by his uncle on one 
occasion (Lib., i. 63, 4). 

* The 5t<£\e£is, though sometimes an introductory speech, was 
not always so (see Himer., or., vi, xvii, xxij). It was prepared 
beforehand or given extempore (ib., or., vi). The discourses of 
the philosophers were SiaX^eis (Themis., 312 b). See, further, 
Rohde, Gr. Rom., p. 346, n. 1. 

6 Philos., 528. 6 Here would be included the denied. 



224 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

might be (2) one of the epideictic, or encomiastic, 
speeches, to be described later; 1 or it might be (3) a 
speech of the sort called fxe\erai y dramatic, or semi- 
dramatic, representations or interpretations of char- 
acter in given situations, or arguments for or against 
certain imagined lines of conduct. 2 It is with this third 
sort of speech that we have to do at present. 

Sometimes the sophist prepared his speech before- 
hand, and then either recited it or read it, when the time 
for display came. This was the case with Aristeides, 
who was never able to summon his thoughts on the spur 
of the moment, and of whom it was a saying that he 
was not one of those who cast up their words undigested, 
but one who gave them careful treatment. 3 He re- 
quired twenty-four hours for the preparation of his 
theme, and during that time labored at it phrase by 
phrase and thought by thought. "Such work," says 
Philostratus, 4 "is that of a person chewing, not eating, 
for extempore speech is the accomplishment of a fluent 
tongue." Apollonius of Naucratis, 5 Scopelian, 6 and 
Polemo 7 were accustomed to withdraw from the room 
for a short space after the theme had been propounded, 
in order to collect their thoughts in private, and Isseus 

required half a day to put his argument into shape. 8 
i p. 263. 

*<rvfi(3ov\evTiK& (suasorice) and SucaviKd (controversies). 

3 Philos., 583; Eunap., p. 82. Proclus was another who re- 
quired that his theme be given him the day before (Philos., 
604). See also Lib., i. 51, 3; ep., 407. 

< 583. 6 Philos., 600. 6 Philos., 519. 7 Philos., 537. 

8 Philos., 514; but see next note. Sometimes the sophist 
thought over his theme for a few moments in his seat (ib., 572: 
Kaupbv 5' im<rx& v ^P a X^ v )- Isaeus put on his gown, in the pres- 
ence of the audience, after he arose (Plin., ep. y ii. 3). 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 225 

More often, however, the sophist spoke extempore, and 
ready wit was sure of ready applause. Even Aristeides, 
scoffer as he was, admired this accomplishment and 
labored hard to acquire it. 1 

The theme for discussion was usually given by one of 
the audience, or, if some distinguished person was 
present, the choice was left to him. 2 Sometimes, out of 
several themes that were propounded, the speaker se- 
lected one or allowed the audience to select one. 3 If the 
display was given at the request of a magistrate, the 
magistrate generally set the theme, and, in case a con- 
test among several sophists was on hand, either a single 
theme was set for all to discuss * or a different theme for 
each. 5 Occasionally a sophist practised deception upon 
his audience. By skilful depreciation of all the different 
themes propounded, he could, by a process of suggestion 
similar to that employed by the prestidigitator in forcing 
a card, compel his audience to select a particular theme, 6 



1 Philostratus (620) tells of a sophist who could speak extem- 
pore with the readiness of one reading what was familiar to him. 
So Pliny says of Isseus, dicit semper ex tempore, sed tamquam diu 
scripserit. . . . statim omnia ac pcene pariter ad manum, sensus 
reconditi occursant. . . . multa lectio in subitis, multa scriptio 
elucet (ep., ii. 3). Cf. Quint., Inst, or., x. 7. Speed was a charac- 
teristic of the Greek speech as practised by the sophists (Sen., 
Contr., iv. praef., 7). 

2 Philos., 529, 572. Various expressions are used for * pro- 
pounding a theme/ as irpofi&Weip rbv 8pop (Eunap., p. 83), rrpo- 
fidWeip ttjp vir6de<riv (Philos., 529), irpofi&Weip rb irp6^\rjfia (Eunap., 
p. 81), trpofi&Weiv rb ^rrj/xa (ib.), inro(3d\\eiv i)ir68e<nv Kal a<popp.ks 
tup \6ywp (Luc, Rhet. prac., 18), irpbpaWeip (Philos., 583), trpo- 
pd\\e<r9ai (ib., 529), vir6de<rip 8i56pai (ib.), vir6de<rip bplfrip (ib., 579). 

8 Luc, Rhet. pro3c., 18; Plin., ep., ii. 3, 2. Isaeus even allowed 
the audience to select the part to be defended. 

1 Eunap., pp. 81, 86. 6 Eunap., p. 81. 

8 Luc, Rhet. prcec, 18. 



226 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

or he could instruct a friend stationed in the audience to 
see that the theme desired was propounded and ac- 
cepted. 1 Herodes Atticus, on one occasion, hearing 
that the sophist Philager was accustomed to repeat his 
own speeches and pass them off as new, secured a 
copy of the sophist's most successful speech — one that 
had already been published — and then propounded this 
very theme for the sophist to discuss. After Philager 
had finished speaking, Herodes quietly read aloud 
from the copy which he held before him. Philager 
was laughed out of the room. 2 // 

The theme once fixed upon, to see it in all its aspects 
and in all its bearings, and to select that point of view 
and that method of treatment which promised to be the 
most effective, were for these extempore speakers the 
work of but a moment. 3 Their whole training was de- 

1 Luc, Pseudolog., 5. ! Philos., 579. 

8 Hermocrates impressed his audience by his power to grasp a 
theme, iv <TTiyfj.rj tov Kaipov (Philos., 612). Ptolemy was blamed 
by some for not being able to distinguish his themes or to see 
wherein the ardais (status), the point of view, or the point on 
which the case is to be made to rest, lay (ib., 595, 596). Thus, in 
the theme wherein the Thebans charged the Messenians with 
ingratitude for not receiving the Theban fugitives who had been 
driven from their homes by Alexander, it was said there was no 
<rT&<ris; for, if the charge was made while Alexander was living, 
no one would be bold enough to vote in condemnation of the 
Messenians, while, if it was made after his death, no one would 
be so easy as to vote for their acquittal. Philostratus justifies the 
theme by saying that the defence is made on the ground of pardon 
(^vyyvtbfiijv) in view of the fear in which the Thebans stood of 
Alexander (see Volkmann, Rhetorik, p. 99). Compare the case of 
the sophists at Athens wrangling over the point of view, or chief 
point of contention (a-rda is), in a theme propounded to them by 
the proconsul Anatolius (Eunap., p. 87). Each took a different 
<rT&<ris; and if there had been more than a dozen sophists, said 
Anatolius, the result would have been the same. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 227 

signed to give them this facility, and constant practice 
kept it ever alive. 1 The sophist Marcus, we are told, 3 
used to go through the streets with knit brows and 
abstracted air, pondering his themes even in his hours 
of leisure. Being on one occasion asked how he had 
succeeded in a declamation the day before, he replied, 
"Very well before myself, but before my students, 
poorly." "How is that?" asked the astonished hearer. 
"Even when I am silent, I am busy," returned the 
sophist, "and, though I interpret one theme in public, 
two or even three themes are running through my head." 
Ready Speakers, resembling perhaps our Guides to 
AJter-Dinner Speaking, were written, and doubtless 
often served to jog the tired sophist's wit. 3 

The themes which were propounded to the sophists 
were similar to those which were made use of by the 
sophists themselves in the class-room, and of which we 
have already had examples. They were deliberative or 
judicial in character, and, if the imaginary circum- 
stances were attached to definite names, instead of being, 
as was often the case, given without definition of time 
and place, the matter was almost exclusively drawn 
from the ancient history and mythology. The Spartan, 
urging his brother Spartans not to receive those coming 
back from Sphacteria without their shields; * Demos- 
thenes, defending himself against a charge of bribery 

1 The sophist studied by night (Philos., 518; Lib., i. 75, 15; 
Syn., Dion, 11; Themis., 312 b). Constant practice necessary 
for the sophist (Himer., or., xvii. 6; xxiv. 4; Luc, Dem., 36). Cf. 
Pliny, of Isaeus (ep., ii. 3, 4): Ad tantam Hiv studio et exercitatione 
pervenit: nam diebus et noctibus nihil aliud agit, nihil audit, nihil 
loquitur. 

7 Philos., 528, 529. 8 Philos., 581; cf. 565. 4 Philos., 528. 



228 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

brought by Demades; l an unknown accusing Epicurus 
of impiety on the ground of his denial of Divine Provi- 
dence; 2 the poor man accusing the rich man who had 
ruined the poor man's happiness; 3 an unknown urging 
that those who by reason of dwelling on the plain were 
in ill health should remove to the mountains 4 — these 
are but a sample of the situations which the sophist was 
required to expound. Some of the situations imagined 
were purely fictitious, but more often they were those 
either of actual or of probable occurrence. 

In these deliberative and judicial themes the orator 
was required to imagine himself in the positions of the 
different characters, and to portray, in suitable words 
and action, their thoughts and feelings in the given 
situations; or he was required to speak, in the role of 
advocate, appropriate arguments for or against certain 
definite lines of conduct. In theory there was here in- 
volved more than the actor's trade, which is to inter- 
pret by action and manner words that have been written 
by another; the sophist's problem (at least in the im- 
personation themes) was to write, or, more often, to 
speak on the spur of the moment, the words appropriate 
to the character assumed, and by his own action to in- 
/ terpret these. It is evident that in such a representation 
there was much that was dramatic. "The most of the 
'business' and the aim of dancing (or the pantomimic 
art)," says Lucian, 5 "is, as I have said, representation 

» Philos., 538. a Himer., ec, iii. 8 Himer., ec, iv. 

4 Philos., 575. 

6 De saltat., 65. In 35 he says that rhetoric and ' dancing ' have 
this in common, that they both aim to express character and 
feeling {fidos and 7rd0ds). On imitation in dancing, see Libanius's 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 229 

(wro/cpicm), the same kind of representation that is 
practised by the sophists, especially in their so-called 
declamations. For in these, too, representation gains 
most credit when it fits the parts that are taken, and 
when the words that are spoken are not out of harmony 
with the characters of the princes and the tyrant-slayers 
and the poor men and the farmers who are introduced, 
but express, in the case of each of these, that which is 
characteristic of it and belongs to it alone." 

Recognition of the fact that there existed a close con- 
nection between the sophistic oratory and tragedy is 
expressed in many of the utterances of the sophists 
themselves. "It was the Ionians," says Himerius, 1 
" who, finding oratory poor and meanly clad and dwelling 
about the courts, raised it to something more grand and 
tragic than tragedy itself;" and the sophist Nicagoras re- 
marking on one occasion that tragedy was the mother 
of sophists, Hippodromus filled out his words by saying, 
"And Homer the father." 8 Tragedy formed a part of 
the course of study of the sophists, and some sophists, we 
are distinctly told, aimed at the tragic grandiloquence 
or at other characteristics of the tragic style. 8 Philo- 
stratus tells us * that Scopelian was particularly satis- 
factory in themes relating to the Persian kings, because 

oration lxiii. (iii. 345-395). The writer of speeches is at a dis- 
advantage when compared with the writer of plays, in that he 
cannot introduce costumed characters (Choric, p. 6). Stage- 
acting was a step beyond the sophistic representation. See p. 
232, n. 2, and Quint., Inst, or., xi. 3, 181, 182. 

1 Or., xi. 2. 

1 Philos., 620. It was another of Hippodromus's sayings that 
Homer was the voice and Archilochus the breath of sophists. 

' Philos., 518, 590. « 519, 520. 



230 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

he was very successful in representing the high spirit of 
those parts and at the same time the levity of the bar- 
barian character; and of similar suggestiveness is the 
story that is told of Polemo. Polemo, while walking 
through the market-place, caught sight of a sophist 
laying in a store of sausages and sprats and other such 
cheap fare. "My friend," he said, 1 "you cannot hope 
to represent well the high spirit of Darius if you eat 
such stuff as that." Pointing in the same direction is 
the frequent use of theatrical terms — viroicplvecrBcu, 
aycovL^ea-Oai, etc. — in connection with the sophist's 
trade. 2 

The action of the sophist in declaiming, we shall not 
be surprised to find, was much more violent than is that 
of the modern orator. Indeed, among both the Greeks 
and the Romans in ancient times, far greater freedom 
was allowed in this respect than is the case with us at 
the present day. 3 Thus, Cicero recognized that there 
were occasions when it was necessary for the orator to 
strike his forehead with his hand or to stamp on the 
ground, 4 though such gestures as these were in general 
forbidden by the more moderate Quintilian. 5 But 
even Cicero would probably have taken offence at the 

• Philos., 541. 

tviroKplpeffOcu (Philos., 541); iyuvlfco-dcu (ib., 514); 5ie!-i4pcu (ib., 
522). Cf. ib., 537: ttjv d£ ok^v^v rod dv$p6s, $ ^ J T ° l$ iie\4rai 
ixpfaa-To • ib., 595; Himer., or., xvii. 6. On vir6Kpi<Tis, see 
Volkmann, Rhetorik, p. 573. Aristocles, when he became a 
sophist, frequented the theatre and took on its ways (Philos., 
567). 

8 See Volkmann, Rhetorik, p. 576. 

*Brut., 80, 278; De or., iii. 59, 220; cf. Quint., Inst, or., x. 7, 
26; xi. 3, 123 and 128. 

6 See Inst, or., i. 11, 1-3; ii. 12, 9 and 10; iv. 2, 39. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 231 

gestures of some of the later Greek sophists, for all that 
was in any way theatrical was excluded from his code. 1 
We have seen in a previous chapter how Proaeresius on 
one occasion pranced about the stage like one inspired, 
and Polemo, it is said, such was his superabundance of 
energy, used to spring from his seat with a bound when 
he came to the crucial point of his speech. 8 "He came 
forward to speak," says Philostratus, "with a calm and 
confident air;" and then, farther on, "Herodes says 
that . . . when he rounded off a period, he spoke the 
final clause with a smile, showing thereby that it caused 
him no trouble; also that in certain parts of his theme 
he struck the ground with his foot, like Homer's horse." 
Scopelian had a habit of striking his thigh with his hand 
occasionally, while speaking, to arouse the interest of 
his hearers and himself, and this seems to have been a 
not uncommon practice among the speakers of that day.' 
Scopelian, further, when engaged on his Medic or Per- 
sian themes, would sway from side to side like one in a 

frenzy. 4 Alexander gave effect to certain words in one 

> De or., iii. 59, 220. 

2 Philos., 537; cf. Seneca, Contr., vii. prcef., 1. Hippodromus 
would sometimes jump from his seat before he began (Philos., 
619). The practice seems to have differed about speaking from 
the seat. Proaeresius on one occasion spoke the irpoayuiv, or 
introductory remarks, from his seat, but rose when he came to 
the dydv, or main theme (Eunap., p. 82); so also Alexander 
(Philos., 572). Scopelian spoke, sometimes from his chair, some- 
times standing (ib., 519). Isaeus rose before beginning to speak 
(Plin., ep., ii. 3, 2). Probably the practice of most speakers 
was to speak the dydv, or the most impassioned part thereof, 
standing, and the irpoaywv sitting. 

• Philos., 519; Luc, Rhet. prcec, 19; Quint., Inst, or., ii. 12, 10; 
xi. 3, 123. Sometimes the orator walked about the stage in an 
insolent or affected manner (Luc, Rhet. prcec, 19). 

« Philos.. 520. 



232 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

of his speeches by weeping as he spoke them, 1 and a 
speaker of an earlier age is said to have thrust his tongue 
from his mouth and smacked his lips, to illustrate more 
vividly the action of eating. When Libanius was lect- 
uring at Constantinople, he drew large audiences ; 
some of the people came to hear him speak, but the 
most, he says, to see his gestures. 2 The whole manner 
of the sophist on the stage was, as is evident from the 
expressions that are used with regard to it, 3 typically 
one of pompous aggressiveness. It was designed both 
to impress and to impose upon the audience. Nor was 
this manner always confined to the stage; even in pri- 
vate life the sophist was often by force of habit over- 
bearing and arrogant. 4 

1 Philos., 574. Cf. Seneca, Contr., iv. praef., 11; Quint., Inst, 
or., vi. 2, 36. The hair of Timocrates's head and beard, it is said, 
stood on end when he spoke (Philos., 536). 

8 Lib., i. 54, 12. His audiences at Constantinople had, how- 
ever, very little literary appreciation. Cf. ib., i. 43, 1: iireSei- 
kvv/xt]v Kivotifxevos rd eludbra' iii. 199, 18: ovSev <pai8p6repov iv 
6edrp<p <ro<pi<TTOv t& irptirovra kivov ixtvov re Kal <rx r ll xaLTL $ l JL tvQV. 
Libanius was once taunted with being an actor rather than an 
orator (ib., ep., 127; cf. Gell., i. 5). 

3 E. g., Themis., 243 a: Kad-fjixevov iirl dpbvov rivbs v\f/TJ\ov nd\a 
<tq<Pi<ttikQs Kal (ro/Sapws- Choric, p. 6: ov tAs 6(ppvs iiraipovjrjs, dv 
Pa5L<r/Mri (ro/3ap<J> KexPV^V^t K &* ^k <P^<re(as KxV T & rOtavra 'PrjTopiK^' 
Syn., Dion, 11: iffdrjrt Kal ffx^P-o-ri aofiapoh, . . . Kal irpcxryeKq. r<p 
dedrpy Kal x a ^P €L Sijdep, ij 5t ^r)x^} Kararelverai. Smiling seems to 
have been a characteristic proceeding: Polemo smiled, as stated 
in the text, and so did Libanius (Lib., i. 63, 5). 

* Greg. Naz., ep., 233: rb XPVP* & va - 1 6<tvfxd<riov, otdv oofiapbv 
<p64yye<rdai, fitya p\iireiv, fiaSlfeiv v\f/rj\bv Kal fxeriupov. Cf. Lib., 
i. 37, 1; Procop., ep., 69, 72, 85. See Schlosser, Univ., Stud. 
u. Prof. d. Griech. in Archiv. fur Gesch. u. Lit., pp. 258 ff., for the 
Christians. Compare further on the sophist's manner, Luc, 
Rhet. proec, 15; Aristeid., ii. p. 533 (the sophist brandishes 
his arms, draws his lips awry, loads his person with clothes, and 
prances back and forth); Themis., 341 b; Syn., Dion, 11. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 233 

The voice of the sophist was carefully attuned, 1 and 
resembled in its flexibility and melodiousness some deli- 
cate musical instrument. Often, we may believe, the 
utterance had much of the character of sing-song, and 
at its best it may have been a kind of modulated in- 
tonation.* "The voice of Polemo," says Philostratus, 3 
"was clear and sustained, and his tongue gave forth a 
wonderful ring." Pxoseresius, we remember, 4 also closed 
his periods with a sonorous ring. " The Romans," says 
Philostratus again, 5 "listened to Adrian as if he were 
some sweet-voiced nightingale, wondering at his flow of 
words, and the quality and flexibility of his voice, and 
the rhythms, both prose and metrical;" and Favorinus 
charmed his hearers by the sound of his voice, the keen 
glance of his eye, and the rhythmic flow of his words. 6 
/"~A musical and well-modulated voice and an har- 
monious flow of language may be considered as being 
supplementary to each other, and the Greek ear was 
delicately susceptible to both. Great stress was, of 
course, laid by the sophist on the perfection of his lit- 
erary style, and the language tended to become in his 
hands more and more a thing of the hot-house, forced 

1 Syn., Dion, 1: ef tk d£iot ttjv iirc/j.4\€iav t^s (poiuijs ooQuTTinbv 
iy&vifffjui oieffffai • Lib., ep., 172: ?j re 0w»/7} XP^ P V 7r / 5 ^* T ^ k&Wuttov 
Mci. According to Synesius, the sophist ate tragacanth to make 
his voice flexible (Dion, 11). Sometimes he would turn around 
in the middle of his display, take a bowl from his slave's hand, 
and gargle before going on with his song. Cf. also Philos., 577: 
\afMirpg. tj} <f>o)vy Kal ^<tkijh4vtj. Libanius tried his voice and got 
the pitch before speaking (Lib., i. 51, 9). In general, the ancient 
utterance was much more musical than the modern, Anglo- 
Saxon, utterance. 

*Cf. Quint., Inst. or. t xi. 3, 57/f.; Cic, Or., 8, 27; 18, 57. 

8 537. <P. 157. See also Philos., 327. 5 589. • Philos., 491. 






234 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

and artificial in character. The ordinary and well-felt, 
if not always well-understood, prose rhythms — such 
rhythms as characterized the artistic prose of the Greeks 
in an earlier age and belong in some measure to all 
prose that is harmonious in any language — were, in 
the prose of the sophists, often supplemented and some- 
times displaced by the metrical rhythms — the rhythms 
of poetry. The sophist Varus, we are told, 1 made his 
language so rhythmic that one could almost dance to it, 
and Herodes once introduced into a speech rhythms 
more varied than those of the lyre or the flute. 2 

So characteristic and well-recognized a feature of the 
prose of this period had the poetic style — not poetic 
rhythms alone, but poetic words and expressions and 
forms of thought — become, that the word aBeiv, "to 
sing," is hardly to be distinguished in its use in the 
sophistic writings from the word Xeyew, "to say," 
while not infrequently the prose compositions of the 
sophists were called by the name ao-fiara, "songs," 
or some similar name. 3 This usage is significant of a 
change in the worlds attitude toward the two great de- 
partments of literature, prose and poetry. Prose, as an 
artistic production, had usurped in men's minds the 
place which poetry once held, and of real poetry there 
was at this time a singular dearth. Poets, it is true, are 
frequently mentioned in the writers of the fourth century, 
but generally in conjunction with sophists and public 

» Philos., 620. 2 Philos., 573. 

3 For £5«»-, see Radermacher, in Jahrb. f. Phil., 1896, i. p. 116. 
For the connection of epideictic literature and poetry, see Bur- 
gess, Epideictic Literature, pp. 166 ff. q.anara (Lib., i. 518, 22); 
prjropiKds (avarideh) H/jlvop &vev fxirpov (ib., i. 225, 10). 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 235 

speakers. 1 It is apparent that the functions of the 
three classes were considered to be similar. The poets, 
like the sophists, held displays, they dealt with 'epi- 
deictic* themes, and their compositions, like many of 
those of the sophists, were probably often directed 
at the auditor rather than at the reader of later time. 
The poets, indeed, received their training in the sophis- 
tical schools, and men were there moulded into poets, as 
they were into rhetors or sophists. For if ever it was 
true, it was so at this time, that poeta fit, non nascitur? 
The extent to which the rhetorical literature had usurped 
the forms and the spirit of poetry is perhaps best seen 
in the compositions of Himerius, some of which are as 
near being on the line between prose and poetry as it is 
well possible to be. 

Under these conditions we are not surprised to learn 
that some sophists, through their excess of emotion, 
burst forth into song in the midst of their recitations. 3 
Such prose style and such delivery charmed many ears, 
but the saner critics, even among the sophists themselves, 
recognized the perniciousness of the practice. 4 Isaeus 
once reproved a student for making his language and 
delivery over-musical, by saying, "My lad, I have not 
taught you to sing." 5 "For all over-rhythmical writ- 

l E. g., Lib., i. 34, 12; 652, 8; ii. 372, 20; Themis., 254 b. 

1 Cf. Himer., or., xiv. 22: p^rtap re irtar^nuv nal iroiirrfa 
tvdeos yCverat- Theon, 2, p. 168 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. p. 70): 
efns ij iroiTjTcDr i) \oyoiroiQv ij AWtov rivGav X67WV 86vapup idi\ei 
fierax^p^^adai. 

3 Luc, Pseudolog., 7. 

'E.g., Philos., 601, 602, 607, 620; Luc, Hist, conscr., 46. 
For the affected speech of the sophists, see Plut., De red. rat. 
aud., 7. 5 Philos., 513. 



236 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ing," says the author of the Trepl ttyrou?, 1 "is at once felt 
to be affected and finical and wholly lacking in passion 
owing to the monotony of its superficial polish. . . . 
Sometimes, indeed, the listeners knowing beforehand 
the due terminations stamp their feet in time with the 
speaker, and as in a dance give the right step in antici- 
pation." 

The charm which a musical voice and sweet language, 
even when unaccompanied by sense, had for the ancient 
ear, is well illustrated by the story that is told of the 
manner in which the Romans were affected by the elo- 
quence of the Greek-speaking Adrian at the time of the 
latter's stay in Rome. 

He so charmed the city [says Philostratus ^ that he 
caused even those who were unfamiliar with the Greek 
language to wish to hear him. . . . When the Romans 
were engaged in celebrating their religious festivals, . . . 
it needed but the appearance at the stage door of the mes- 
senger announcing a recitation by Adrian, and all would 
jump up, the senators from their seats and the knights from 
theirs, and hasten to the Athenaeum, chiding as they went 
those who were slow of foot; and it was not alone the 
Greek-educated people, but even those who had been 
taught only Latin at Rome, who were filled with this zeal. 

1 41 (Mr. Roberts's trans.)- Sometimes the lines were filled in 
with unmeaning or disconnected words (Luc, Rhet. prcec, 19; 
Cic, Orat., 69, 230), or a sort of tag, or refrain, was given at the 
end of each clause, which the audience would anticipate (Aristeid., 
ii. p. 564). Sometimes the speaker ranted (Luc, Rhet. prcec, 19; 
Lib., iii. 362, 15). Cf. Quint., Inst, or., ii. 12. For the singing 
of sophists, public speakers, and even philosophers, see Dio 
Chrys., xxxii. 686 R. See also Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, 
i. pp. 55, 57, 294, 376. 

2 589; cf. 488 (of Dion's speech). See also Norden, Die antike 
Kunstprosa, i. p. 5. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 237 

With this we may compare the following: 

Such peace and such sweetness blossomed from his 
speech and were poured about the ears [says Eunapius, of 
Eustathius, in his flowery and not always logical style 1 ] 
that those who listened to his voice and his words, yielding 
themselves, like men who had tasted of the lotus, to their 
influence, hung, charmed, from his voice and his words. 

And, again, Eunapius's description of Chrysanthius's 
eloquence: 1 

Just as the sweetest and most beautiful melodies are 
attuned to every ear, and flow, gliding peacefully and 
soothingly, even into the souls of unreasoning beasts, as is 
said to have been the case with the measures of Orpheus, so 
the speech of Chrysanthius was fitted to every listener, and, 
though characters and dispositions are various, it was in 
harmonious accord with each. 

It is clear from the frequent allusions to the voice and 
the language of the sophists that the study of the har- 
monious accord of these was cultivated to an extent 
which we of to-day perhaps hardly realize. 3 

But it was not alone in manner and in voice, in gest- 
ure and in tone, that the sophist had to portray char- 
acter. He must also select and arrange words that were 
appropriate and that expressed by their meaning the 

•P. 28. *P. 112. 

8 Polemo's language is spoken of as being well-rounded and 
full, like the tone of the Olympian trumpet (Philos., 542). 
Polydeuces is said to have spoken a certain passage in a voice 
that was "honey-sweet" (jueXixp? rrj <f>u)i>rj, ib., 593). It was 
noticed that Pausanias, who was a Cappadocian, spoke with a 
thick utterance, running together his consonants and making 
long vowels short and short vowels long (ib., 594). 



/ 



238 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

thoughts and the emotions of the one he was imper- 
sonating. It is evident that in the manner of handling a 
theme a good deal of latitude was possible. The sophist 
might by his method of treatment give to a subject 
otherwise one of the commonest an individual char- 
acter, while one and the same subject might in different 
hands put on entirely different aspects. The display 
was doubtless often regarded as an intellectual study, 
wherein the sophist introduced to his students and to 
the public new methods and new ways of treatment. 
Generally he would introduce his declamation by a few 
words of preface, in which he would take occasion to 
explain briefly the technical features of the theme he 
was about to discuss, mention any novelties in the way 
of treatment which he would introduce, and call upon 
the audience to observe with what success he put into 
practice the principles which he taught. Let us hear 
from Himerius and Choricius examples of this sort of 
introduction. The first example, from Himerius, is the 
introduction, not to a deliberative or judicial theme, but 
to a so-called IT poire furri/cos , or speech of farewell, 1 one 
of the many forms of speeches cultivated in the sophistic 
schools. 

Themes which are common property [says Himerius] 
are given an individual character by the method of treat- 
ment. Thus, so-called farewell speeches, though they are 
a modern invention, may by artistic handling be made to 
smack of antiquity. Such handling I have here given a 
farewell speech. The present theme I have put into the 
form of a dialogue, but, in so doing, I have neither injured 

• Ec, x. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 239 

the subject-matter nor have I neglected the stately elegance 
which is peculiar to dialogues. I have, after the manner of 
Plato, though my subject is ethical, introduced physical 
and speculative matter, and have mingled this with the 
ethical. Plato, further, disguised the more divine parts of 
his argument by putting them into the form of myths, and 
you must observe whether I have successfully imitated 
him in this. The other characteristics of dialogues, the 
interruptions, the descriptions, and the digressions, as 
well as the various beauties of style and the general 

dramatic quality, all these my speech itself will best show 

whether 1 have attained. Dialogues begin with a plain 
style, in order that the simplicity of the style may enhance 
the simplicity of the matter, but, as the ideas swell and 
increase, the style also becomes fuller and rounder. 
Whether I have in this matter adhered to the rule, those 
of you whose cars have been trained by technical instruc- 
tion to the judging of such matters may determine. 

Of the speech of which this was the introduction we 
have only excerpts. 

The second and third examples, 1 from Chorieius, the 
fifth century sophist of da/a, arc the introductions re- 
spectively to the two speeches on opposite sides of a 
judicial theme. The theme is this: A certain wealthy 
and covetous old man has determined to marry his son 
to a well-to-do but ill-favored girl. The son falls in love 
with another girl, who is poor but handsome, and he 
asks his father for permission to marry her. 'Phis the 
father refuses to give. War occurs, and the son dis- 
tinguishes himself on the field of battle. According to 
the law, the son is now at liberty to BJSk for any reward 
he may wish. lie asks for the hand of his beloved. 
' Rhetn. Mus., 49, pp. 484, 504. 



240 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The father objects. The orator, at this time a young 
man, takes the part, first of the son, then of the father, 
each of whom is represented as speaking in his own be- 
half. The introduction to the son's speech is as follows: 

The laws of the art (i. e., sophistry) admit also of sons 
contending with fathers. For all the kinds of suits that 
occur in real life are imitated in the fictitious cases. Now 
there are many reasons why this young man has the sym- 
pathy of the people : he has gained a victory on the battle- 
field, he has rescued his country from danger, he comes 
here with the law on his side, he asks for a reasonable 
reward — a girl brought up in modest circumstances. 
But although he has all these advantages weighing on his 
side, he is still not free from anxiety, and he is not con- 
fident that he will win his suit without a struggle. For 
son is opposed to father, and poverty to wealth — the lat- 
ter a thing which all men like, but which is especially dear 
to him who is covetous. Therefore it is with reason that 
the son is at once boastful and flattering; the war has given 
him boldness and confidence, but before his father, not- 
withstanding his victory, he is humble and submissive. 
For he would not have any of his audience judge his whole 
life from the present controversy, and, inferring that he is 
by nature contentious and brazen toward his parents, be 
less favorably disposed toward him. Now, of course, it 
would have been best for the boy to overcome his love, but 
since he did not, the second best, as the saying is, is that he 
should appear not to have acted in an immoderate fashion ; 
his contention is that this is the first time that he has been 
in love, that he did not carry the girl off by force, and in 
general that he did nothing that could lead to any disgrace, 
nothing of the sort that lovers usually do. He thus clears 
his own character and at the same time gives his beloved 
an added brightness by showing that her excellence has 
attracted the love of a modest young man. This is what 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 241 

he wrll do, and he will try, to the best of his ability, to make 
it clear that the object of his affection, rather than the 
well-to-do girl, should be chosen; and if he shall happen 
to seem to praise the former overmuch, he must be par- 
doned, since he is a lover. The father I hand over as a 
study to the old and covetous, who are of like habits with 
him ; I have naturally assumed the part of the young man, 
for like takes to like, as the old proverb says. 

The orator afterward decides to defend the part of 
the father, and he introduces the father's speech by the 
following explanation : 

The old man, in the study, has also fallen in love — 
but not with a beautiful maiden, for old age has no dis- 
sipations of that sort, but with a large dowry, and if he 
shall seem to be urging his son to an orderly course of 
life and to be upbraiding him for his love of the girl, he 
directs all his words to one end, the end toward which he 
decided at the outset to direct his life. He considers the 
well-to-do girl as more preferable, not, it may be, because 
he finds her very comely, for his intelligence is blinded by 
his love of the dowry, and the beauty of the poor girl is 
dimmed in the eyes of the covetous judge. In fact, the 
judgment of both is at fault, that of the son owing to his 
love for the girl, that of the father through his desire for 
money. Now the latter's reason is interfered with by 
several emotions — desire and fear and pain ; he loves 
money, he is suspicious of the alliance with a poor girl, 
he is grieved at losing a sweet hope which allowed him a 
glimpse of gold as the result of his son's prowess; for he 
expected his son to ask as his reward that which was the 
object of his own desire. But though tormented in all 
T 'hese ways, he does not yet show great rage toward his 
son, for fear that he shall irritate the people by attacking 
too bitterly the savior of the city, but he at one time 
gives vent to his anger, as at once a father and an old 



242 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

man — for age is naturally quick-tempered — and at an- 
other time he puts a check on his feelings and shows him- 
self mild in consideration of his son's prowess. And the 
youth having given proof of his early modesty and having 
shown that he knows how to honor his parents, the father, 
naturally, falls in with this line of proof, in order that he 
may exhort his son to be true to himself and may show 
that he has laid himself open to greater blame. For when a 
man changes from a good course of life to the opposite, 
the disgrace is twofold. Thus I will assume the r6le of 
the covetous father, though I am not, I believe, naturally a 
great lover of money, nor am I a father of children; but I 
will take the imitation of both characteristics from my art. 

It is worth while to have dwelt thus long on this 
aspect of our subject, for we gain from it an idea of 
what the tasks were which these men set themselves. 
Of course, the tasks set the students in the schools were 
similar in all respects to those undertaken by the soph- 
ists themselves. We see that the question was not 
simply one of harmoniously grouped words, well-modu- 
lated voice, and graceful manner; there was, besides, 
a real intellectual problem involved — often, as in the 
case here dealt with from Choricius, a careful study of 
character. It was this, we may believe, no less than 
the charm of voice and manner and the music of words, 
that in most cases pleased the audience and drew forth 
their applause. 

It would be interesting to examine some of the dis- 
play speeches of Himerius and others, in order to see 
how these sophists treated their themes and what it 
was that appealed so strongly to the intellect of the 
people of those days. We should find, perhaps, that in 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 243 

many cases the so-called originality of treatment was 
nothing more than a recurrence to old forms and 
methods. Often it was a clever saying, or a clever way 
of putting an old saying, a striking simile or metaphor, 
an antithesis either of word or of thought, that called 
forth the applause. For such examination, however, 
we have not at present the space, but we may glance at 
a few of the samples of style contained in the pages of 
Philostratus, and from these, perhaps, gain a suggestion 
of what these sophists' methods were like. 

One of the favorite themes of Herodes Atticus was 
that wherein he impersonated the wounded Athenians 
in Sicily begging of their brother Athenians, who were 
preparing to depart for home, death at their hands. 1 
With tears in his eyes, he uttered the words : vol Nt/eia, 
val irdrep, ovtcos ' KQr)va<$ 1801$, "In the name of Nicias, 
in the name of father, may you then see Athens." At 
these words the sophist Alexander, who was Herodes's 
auditor, is said to have exclaimed, "Ah, Herodes, we 
other sophists are all only fragments of you." Much 
of the effect of Herodes's words was doubtless pro- 
duced by the manner and the tone of voice in which 
they were spoken, but we can well understand how this 
appeal of those who never expected to see Athens again 
to those who were on the point of departing for home 
was designed to touch the hearts of the listeners. The 
words of Herodes became famous and were hummed on 
the street. 

One of Secundus's themes was this : 2 The man who 
begins a revolution is to be put to death, the man who 
^hilos., 574. *Philos., 545. 






/ 



244 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ends one is to be rewarded; the same man begins and 
ends a revolution, and then demands a reward. This 
theme Secundus summarized thus: Now which did 
you do first ? Started the revolution. Which second ? 
Ended it. Very well, pay the penalty for your wrong 
deed, and then take the reward for your good, if you 
can. This kind of airopia, or mental puzzle, was a 
favorite exercise with the sophists, and the interest of 
the audience was engaged to see how the orator would 
dispose of the perplexity in a striking and effective way. 
Sometimes our author passes judgment on the ex- 
tracts that he gives. Thus, the following, from the pen 
of the great Lollianus, is described as being a brilliant 
lightning-flash of wit: 1 Lollianus is inveighing against 
the law of Leptines, which has closed the Hellespont to 
Athenian vessels, and he says: "The mouth of the 
Pontus has been closed by law, and a few syllables 
shut off the supplies of the Athenians. Lysander 
waging war with ships, and Leptines waging war with 
law, are equally powerful" (jceickeicrTai to aro^a tov 
Uovtov vo/jlg) teal ras ' 'AOrjvaicov rpo(f)a<; 6\iycu kq)\vov<ti 
avWaftal, teal ravrov Svvarai Avo~av8po<; vavfia^cov /cal 
AeTrTivrjs vofio^a^v). It is impossible for us, without 
the sound of the orator's voice, and with our imperfect 
appreciation of rhythm in prose, fully to imagine what 
the passage, when spoken, would be, but we can see 
that the bold use of the word syllables, and the parallel 
mention of Lysander with his ships and Leptines with 
the law bring into vivid relief the point which Lollianus 
is impressing. 

^hilos., 527. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 245 

The following is characterized by Philostratus as dig- 
nified and pleasing (cr€/«/aj? re koX %vv r)hovr) BieXeyero) : * 
Ma/3<rva? rjpa 'OXvinrov /cal "OXvfnros rov av\elv t 
"Marsyas loved Olympus, and Olympus loved to flute." 

Aristeides was thought by some to be at times too 
violent in his form of expression. Thus he was blamed 
on this score, when he said, in his plea against walling 
in Lacedsemon, "Let us not crouch in fear within a 
wall, clothing ourselves in quails' nature" (m yap 8rj 
iv Tefyet, iTTLTTT^aLfiev opTvycov ava^dixevou (j>vcriv). 2 

A student once expressing in the presence of Isseus 
admiration for the inflated speech of Nicetes in the 
Xerxes theme, "To the royal galley let us fasten the 
isle yEgina" (e/c T77? fiaaiXeiov yew? ' Acytvav avaSrj- 
o-co/xe^a), Isseus, with a loud laugh, said, "How, you 
fool, will you set sail then?" 3 
y Many features of style that are commonplace enough 
to us to-day, metaphors that we hardly longer recognize 
as metaphors, and the like, were then being discovered 
by the Greeks for the first time, and they bore all the 
charm of novelty; especially in a language whose 
directness in general precluded the over-free use of such 
figures. 

The literary style of the different sophists varied, and 
it is therefore difficult to fix upon any well-defined 
idiosyncrasy or mannerism and to say that that was 
probably characteristic of the style of all. Certain 
general tendencies, however, it may be presumed, 
were present to each man, coloring, to a greater or 
less degree, his language and his manner of thought. 
1 574. 2 Philos., 583. 3 Philos., 513. 






246 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 



Two of these may be mentioned. First, there was 
the tendency to clothe a single thought in manifold 
expression. We know that this was a tendency, be- 
cause, as we shall soon see, the ability to do this thing 
was greatly applauded by the audiences of those 
days and admired by the critics. 1 The ability testifies 
once more to the wonderful command which these 
men had over words, shuffling and arranging them 
as the juggler shuffles and arranges his cards. It 
has also left its mark on the sophistic writings, in the 
form of a certain inability to leave a good point when 
once made, a tendency to play around it and to view it 
from several different sides, and often to an undue 
dwelling on unessential or trivial matter. 2 Secondly, 
there was the tendency to disguise one's thoughts, to 
put them in an indirect way, or, perhaps, figuratively. 
This tendency was fostered in the schools; in its nature 
it was not so far removed from the other tendency just 
mentioned, and it often led to obscurity and ambiguity, 
if these were not sometimes even aimed at. 3 

In order to gain an idea of the personality of some of 
these men and of their appearance on the stage, let us 



1 There were some, however, who opposed the principle, saying 
that there was one best way of saying a thing, which, when 
found, should not be changed: Theon, i. p. 152 (Speng., Rh. Gr., 
ii. p. 62). Theon argues strongly against this view. Cf. Cic, 
Pro Arch, poeta, viii. 18: Quotiens revocatum eandem rem dicere, 
commutatis verbis atque sententiis; and Seneca, Contr., iv. prcef., 7. 

8 See, for examples, Lib., i. 277, 286. 

3 Philos., 519: ApLcrros p.kv o5v ko! <rx^aT/o-at \6yov ical 4irafX(f>OT4- 
pus eiireiv. For the general ornateness and artificiality of the 
sophistic style, see Brandstatter, Hermes, 15, pp. 131-274. See 
also Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 247 

turn to the description of Scopelian's manner, given by 
Philostratus, and to the picture drawn by Eunapius of 
the great Proseresius. 

He came before his auditors [says Philostratus of 
Scopelian 1 ], not in a scornful or swaggering way, nor as 
if scared, but as one should come who is about to enter a 
contest in which his reputation is at stake and in which 
he is confident of making no slip. When he spoke from 
his seat, he spoke with elegance and grace, but when he 
spoke standing, his words were full of strength and energy. 
His theme he examined, not in his own house, nor in the 
presence of the audience, but in a side room, where it 
took him but a moment to look it over in all its parts. 
His voice was clear and loud, and pleasing in quality, and 
he often struck his thigh, while speaking, to arouse his 
audience and himself. 

And of Proseresius, Eunapius says: 2 

The writer of these lines crossed from Asia to Europe 
and Athens at the age of sixteen. Proseresius had then 
reached his eighty-seventh year, according to his own 
statement. Notwithstanding his great age, his hair was 
still curly and remarkably thick, and, being very gray, it 
resembled the sea when covered with foam, and it had 
also a silvery tinge. He was then at the height of his 
powers as a speaker, and the youthfulness of his spirit 
gave to his aged body strength and vigor, so that the 
present writer looked upon him as one who was immortal 
and destined never to grow old, and attached himself to 
him as to some god who had come, self -bidden and without 
labor, among men. . . . His 3 physical beauty was such 
that one could well doubt if any person in youth had ever 
been so beautiful as he was in old age. . . . His size was 

«619 »P. 73. 3 P. 77. 



248 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

beyond all credence and hardly conjecturable, for he 
seemed to be almost nine feet high, and he looked, when 
seen by the side of the tallest men of his time, like a 
veritable colossus. 

Scopelian and Proseresius were two of the greatest of 
the sophists, and they were free, as were doubtless all 
the really great sophists, from many of the more offensive 
mannerisms of the class. A strong personality, as we 
see from the words of Philostratus and Eunapius, was 
at the back of their popularity. 1 

Much, in the displays of which we have been speak- 
ing, depended on the inspiration and enthusiasm of the 

1 We may notice, in passing, the advanced age to which many 
of these men attained. Proaeresius lived to be ninety-one, 
Priscus was over ninety when he died, Chrysanthius was eighty, 
Libanius was about eighty, Himerius was over seventy, and 
Themistius was about seventy-five or eighty. These were of the 
fourth century. Of the forty-one sophists of the two preceding 
centuries whose lives are contained in the pages of Philostratus, 
one died at the age of ninety, two others at the age of eighty or 
over, seven others at the age of seventy or over, five others at 
the age of sixty or over, and five others at the age of fifty or 
over. Eight others are called "old" or "very old" at the time of 
their death, and two "middle-aged;" one is called "not old." 
In the case of eight the age is left uncertain. Two died young, 
one of them at the age of twenty-five or twenty-eight. Of the 
eight about whose age nothing is said in Philostratus, Herodes 
died at the age of about seventy-five, and Isaeus lived to be over 
sixty (Plin., ep., ii. 3). Hermogenes was an Infant Phenomenon. 
At fifteen he attracted the attention of the emperor Marcus by 
his power as a sophist, but when he reached man's age, this 
power suddenly and unaccountably forsook him, and he died in 
obscurity. The author of the Macrobii (18) accounts for the 
longevity of teachers on the ground that they take better care of 
their health than other men. "Fifty-six," says Philostratus 
(543), "the end of youth in the other arts, and the beginning 
of old age, is for the sophist still youth; for this art, as it grows 
old, gathers wisdom." C/. Lib., i. 208 jf. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 249 

moment, and the orator was often as if in a frenzy 
during his performance. 1 "The moment the light of 
the god flows about the speaker," says Aristeides, 2 
". . . and, like a draught from the spring of Apollo, 
enters into his soul, then does the soul straightway be- 
come tense, and it is filled with heat and a kind of tran- 
quillity; he lifts his eyes upward and his hairs stand 
apart; he looks at nothing . . . but at his words and 
the springs from which they flow." The audience also 
did not remain impassive, but met the orator half-way 
and encouraged him with hand-clapping and words of 
praise. These were things that he could not do with- 
out. 3 Wildly frenzied speakers, working, by their 
words and actions, on the feelings of emotional audi- 
ences, are not unknown to-day: preachers have at 
times been heard to break forth, in the midst of their 
sermons, into song, and to clap their hands and stamp 
the ground. One great point of difference, how- 



*The display is sometimes spoken of as if it involved great 
physical or mental strain; e.g., Philos., 541: IS&v 81 fwvbfiaxov 
IdpwTi f>e6fiepov Kal bedibra rbv vickp rrjs 4' v Xn i dyQpa, ovTtat, elxev, 
iyuvi^t, us neXerav /xtWuv. The sophist often advanced to speak 
with fear and trembling (Lib., i. 335, 16; ii. 288, 6; Syn., Dion, 
11). For the inspiration of the sophist, see Aristeid., ii. 
pp. 525, 528, 533. The custom of speaking as if inspired is said 
to have begun with ^Eschines (Philos., 509: rb ybp deltas \4yeiv 
otfxct) ixkv £irex(*>pla(r€ <to(Pi<ttG>v awovdats, drr' Klax^-vov 8' ijp^aro 
6eo<pop-f)T<# bppvQ dTroax^Sid^QPTos, ibairep ol roi/t xPV^f- ^ 5 dvairvtopres. 

» ii. p. 528. 

3 Philos., 614. Cf. Lib., ii. 80, 14; 81, 2; Themis., 246 a. Aris- 
teides, when about to speak before Marcus, asked to have his 
students present and allowed to shout and clap (Philos., 583). 
The audience must meet the orator half-way (Aristeid., ii. 
p. 529). Cf., further, Rohde, Gr. Rom., p. 335, n. 2. See p. 252, 
n. 2. 



250 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ever, there is between such religious addresses of the 
present day and the ancient displays. In the former 
the appeal is almost wholly to the emotions, and the 
congregation is, as a whole, uncritical; in the latter the 
basis of the enthusiasm was intellectual. "Then," says 
Aristeides, 1 "every auditor grows dizzy and knows not 
whether he is standing on his head or his heels; sur- 
rounding the speaker, like a host marshalled for battle, 
they shout their approval, and one praises his correct- 
ness of language, another his subtlety of thought, a 
third the beauty and grace of his style, each selecting 
that feature to which his natural bent or his training 
inclines him." We should have difficulty in imagin- 
ing any modern audience, religious or not, displaying 
equal enthusiasm for elegance of style or mental acute- 
ness. Probably admiration for the great singer is the 
nearest modern approach to the enthusiasm aroused by 
the ancient sophist. 

Such, then, were the displays, and such the men, 
that young and old in those days flocked in crowds to 
see and hear — even staying at times, as Libanius tells 
us, 2 overnight in the lecture-hall, in order to be on hand 

1 ii. p. 530. At Antioch the people used to flock to the 
courts to hear the speakers (Lib., i. 317, 10). For the aesthetic 
sense of the people of Antioch, see Lib., i. 335, 5: v6r)/xa voaodv, 
Kal ffxVf 1 * Vf JLa P T Vf Ji ^ V0V , kzI PV^ Sie<pdapfi4vov evdin ij\u>. A weak 
idea, a wrong figure, or an inappropriate word was at once 
detected. 

* i. 63, 4. Men of all ages flocked to Libanius's displays at 
Constantinople (Lib., i. 57, 3; cf. ii. 219, 12), and men and women 
of all conditions at Antioch (see below in text); women at Con- 
stantinople also (Themis., 304 b). The ol iroWoi, as well as the 
better class of people, attended Aristeides's displays at Smyrna 
(Aristeid., ii. 562). Again, the sophist's audience is spoken of as 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 251 

in the morning — much as men do nowadays when a 
favorite actor or singer comes to town. In some places, 
the moment a professor's gown appeared, the people 
ran, and, as Themistius says, 1 clung to it as iron clings 
to a magnet. "I have met a number of people from 
Antioch," writes the Christian orator Basil to the 
pagan sophist Libanius, 2 "who have spoken most ad- 
miringly of your eloquence. They said that you held a 
display under the most brilliant auspices; and the per- 
formance, they said, attracted so much attention that 
everybody flocked to it, so that the city seemed as if 
divided into two camps: Libanius, who was contending, 
and everybody else, who was listening. Nobody wished 
to be left out, from the nabob, high in dignity and sta- 
tion, and the military commander, distinguished for his 
rank, to the common workman. Even the women 
came in crowds. Now, what was this performance? 
What was the discourse that could thus bring the whole 
city together ? They told me that you represented the 
character of a fretful man. Send me without delay this 
speech which is so much admired, that I, too, may be 
one of your admirers." Sometimes a distinguished 
sophist would be followed from place to place by his 
students, who would settle wherever the sophist settled. 3 
The presence of Proseresius at Athens was sufficient to 

being made up of all sorts of people (Themis., 201 a, 313 d). See 
also Lib., i. 335, 11; ii. 80, 18. An audience of one thousand is 
mentioned in Epictet., iii. 23, 19. 

1 299 a; c/. 289 a, 293 d. In Athens a certain class of people 
made it their business to tag after the sophists (Philos., 578, 587). 

» Ep., 351, Migne (Lib., ep., 1596). 

• Luc, Dem., 31; Lib., i. 54, 15; 70, 14. 



252 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

attract to the city the educated men from all parts of 
Greece. 1 The enthusiasm in the lecture-hall was, as 
we have already seen, often great; hand-clapping and 
shouting were the approved methods of expressing ad- 
miration, and old men and men that were sick were at 
times known to jump from their seats and wildly 
gesticulate. 2 Libanius used sometimes to chuckle in 
secret over the thought that he had one student who 
shouted like fifty ordinary students. 3 Being thus forced 

1 Eunap., p. 90. 

2 Lib., i. 63, 10. For clapping and shouting, see Lib., iii. 378, 
19; Themis., 243 b, 282 d; Eunap., p. 69; Luc., Nigr., 10; and p. 
249, n. 3. At a funeral oration on one occasion the audience 
shouted at every word (Procop., ep., 49), but Plutarch advised 
against such practices (De rect. rat. aud., 13). Cf. Lib., i. 87, 3. 
See also Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, i. pp. 274, 275, 295, 
296. Sometimes unruly students tried to prevent those who 
were well disposed from shouting (ib., i. 200, 12). Men occasion- 
ally shouted themselves hoarse {ib., ii. 375, 10), and people on 
the street were disturbed by the hooting in a sophist's hall (Plut., 
De red. rat. aud., 15). See, further, Lib., ii. 80 /. For jumping 
from the seat, see Themis., 311 c, 315 c, 343 b, 366 c; Luc, Rhet. 
prac, 21; Lib., ep., 348, 613, 1593. At times the audience be- 
came so excited that they all but turned somersaults (Lib., ii. 
375, 10; cf. p. 262 of the text). Gesticulating with the hands 
was also common, as well as waving the cloak (Luc, Rh . prrnc, 
21; Eunap., p. 73). roi>$ iv reus iiridel^eaL wdvra ttoiovptols, says 
Libanius, i. 211, 3. The audience tried to find extravagant 
words of praise, such as detus, 0eo0opijTws, 'divine,' 'inspired,' 
dirpovlrus, 'inimitable' (Plut., De rect. rat. aud., 15; cf. Lib., i. 
179, 9); vTrep<pv£>s, 'marvellous' (Epictet., iii. 23, 11); davpuarus, 
'wonderful,' OiSi, 'Rah' (Epictet., iii. 23, 24). The usual words 
were koKQs, <ro<f>u>s, dXydus. Antipater, who taught the children 
of the emperor, was called Qe&v di5&<rKa\os (Philos., 607). See 
also Luc, Rhet. prcec, 21. It was considered a sign of distinc- 
tion to enter late at a display (ib., 22). See, further, on this 
subject, Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 27; Rohde, Gr. Rom., pp. 335, 
336. Hissing was a sign of disapproval (Luc, Nigr. } 10); also 
howling (Plut., De rect. rat. aud., 4). 

8 Like Stentor, II, v. 786 (Lib., ep., 280). 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 253 

to pause in his speech, Libanius would smile upon the 
student, and even step down from the platform and run 
up to him. 1 Proseresius, as we saw in a previous chap- 
ter, 2 was hailed as a god on one occasion by his ecstatic 
audience, and escorted from the hall by the proconsul 
in person and his body-guard. Sometimes, when the 
rivalry between different sophists was great, the audi- 
ence was packed, and the applause given at a pre- 
arranged signal, and in concert, under the leadership of 
one of the band. 3 When a sophist was famous and his 
speeches 'took/ snatches of them were hummed on 
the street, 4 or the students, congregating after lecture, 
would try to patch together the parts they had brought 
away in their memory. 5 Adrian's students escorted 
their master home after lecture. 6 

■ Cf. Themis., 314 a. 2 P. 157. Cf. Luc, Rhet. prcec, 21. 

3 Themis., 283 a; Eunap., p. 81; Aristeid., ii. 542; Luc., 
Rhet. prcec, 21. A band of partisans or claqueurs was called 
tfdXcryS (Lib., i. 33, 1), /upls (ib., i. 51, 1). 

i Philos., 574. 5 Lib., i. 201, 6. 

6 Philos., 587. Compare the conduct of the people of Greece 
toward the aged philosopher Demonax, described by Lucian 
(Dem., 63, 64): "He so endeared himself to the Athenians them- 
selves and to all Greece that, when he appeared in an assembly, the 
officials arose and every voice was hushed. Finally in extreme 
old age, whenever, even though unbidden, he entered a house, 
he was always invited to dine and to spend the night, the occu- 
pants looking upon his presence there as a manifestation of god, 
and believing that a good spirit had entered among them. When 
he passed on the street, the bread-women rivalled one another 
in suing for his attention, each urging him to take of her bread; 
and the one from whom he took rejoiced as at a piece of good 
fortune. Even the children offered him fruit, and called him 
'father.' Once dissension having taken place in the Athenian 
assembly, Demonax entered, and his simple presence caused all 
to become silent. Then, seeing that the members had come to 
their senses, he departed without, on his part, saying a word." 



254 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Haughtiness and vanity, we have already seen, 1 were 
characteristic of the sophist. Not infrequently he pre- 
sumed upon his reputation, and many are the anecdotes 
that are told of his overbearing manner and self-con- 
fident ways. Polemo, according to Philostratus, 2 acted 
toward cities as their superior, toward provinces as any- 
thing but their inferior, and toward divinities as their 
equal. On the occasion of his first visit to Athens, he 
did not, as sophists generally did, begin his address by 
referring to the glory of the city and the insignificance 
of his own fame, but said, "They say, Athenians, that 
you are intelligent listeners: I shall see." When Adrian, 
a Phoenician, took the chair of sophistry at Athens, he 
began his inaugural address thus: "Once again come 
letters from Phoenicia." 3 Himerius was frank enough 
to intimate to his audience on more than one occasion 
that he regretted that all men were not wise enough to 
send their sons to him to be educated. 4 Occasionally 
there is a note of extravagance in the sophist's words. 
Polemo is said to have given instructions, just before he 
died, that he should be buried before the breath had 
left his body, and, when the door of his tomb was about 
to be closed, to have cried, "Hurry! hurry! I would 
not be seen above ground with my mouth shut." 5 

Haughtiness and vanity, however, were not incom- 
patible with much genuine human feeling. It was a 
part of the sophist's trade to assume an air of superiority, 
and if the sophist sometimes carried his arrogance and 

• P. 232. See also Themis., 251 b. 

2 535. 3 Philos., 587. 

• Or., xxxiii. 2 ft.; xxxiv. 1, 2. 5 Philos., 543, 544. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 255 

haughtiness into private life, it was no more than most 
people did at a time when the feeling of rank permeated 
nearly all society, as was the case in the fourth and fol- 
lowing centuries. Indeed, the sophists probably made 
a better showing in this respect than most others. We 
feel, as we read their biographies and their works, that 
the humanity of their profession was not wholly without 
influence on their character. 

One of the most pleasing features of the academic 
life of the second and third centuries is the professional 
honesty that existed among certain great sophists — the 
ready willingness to recognize ability even in a rival. 
This is in distinct contrast to the spirit of the fourth 
century, which was one of enmity and petty jealousy, 1 
and it is to be feared that even in the earlier period only 
the greatest of the sophists could rise to this height of 
magnanimity. Sometimes sophists travelled long dis- 
tances to see and hear their brother sophists who were 
famous, and gave them generous praise. Herodes, who 
was a great admirer of extempore speaking, went on 
one occasion to Smyrna to hear the sophist Polemo, 
whom he had never seen. After embracing Polemo and 
kissing him on the lips, he said, "Well, father, when 
shall I hear you speak ?" He thought that Polemo 
would shrink from speaking before one so famous as 
himself, and would make excuses, but Polemo said, 
" To-day; come and you shall hear me now," and when 
he spoke, Herodes wondered at his readiness of tongue 
and mind. "This," says Philostratus, referring to the 
action of Polemo, 2 "shows the man's spirit and his 
1 See pp. 152 ft. * 537. 



256 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

great wisdom, but the following shows his modesty and 
good breeding: for when Herodes entered to hear him 
speak, he received the man with every mark of respect 
and in a manner befitting the latter's words and deeds." 

At another time the aged sophist Dionysius, arriving 
one evening at Sardis and learning that the great Po- 
lemo, who was then at the height of his fame, was in 
town and about to speak the following day on a law 
case, said to his entertainer, Dorion, "What a piece of 
good fortune, if I am to hear Polemo, whom I have 
never yet seen!" "You seem," said Dorion, "much 
affected by this young man, who has already acquired 
such a name." "I am," replied Dionysius. "By 
Athene! I can hardly sleep; my heart jumps and my 
head is in a whirl, when I think how many there are 
who speak in his praise; some say he has twelve springs 
to his tongue, while others measure his speech by the 
yard, as they do the risings of the Nile." Dionysius, 
be it said, was somewhat alarmed for his own reputa- 
tion, but on the next day he heard Polemo speak, and 
regained his courage. "Polemo has strength," was his 
comment, "but not well-trained strength." Polemo, 
hearing of this remark, went to the sophist's door and 
challenged the man to a friendly contest. Dionysius 
went, but came off second best. 1 

The custom of engaging in friendly contest has been 
remarked upon above. 2 Marcus of Byzantium was 
rough and unkempt, and resembled much more a 
countryman than a man of wit and learning. Coming 
once to Smyrna, where Polemo was holding forth, he 
1 Philos., 524, 525. ' P. 218. 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 257 

dropped into the latter's lecture-hall, when all the 
audience was seated and ready to listen to the speaker's 
words. Somebody, who happened to have been at 
Byzantium, recognizing the newcomer, passed the word 
to his neighbor, and so the news went through the 
whole audience that Marcus, the sophist, was present. 
When Polemo asked the audience for a theme, all 
turned to Marcus, but Polemo, not knowing the man, 
and thinking him some rustic who had come to town, 
said, "Why do you look at that countryman? He 
can't give a theme." But Marcus, as was his way, 
throwing back his head and raising his voice, said, "I 
can give a theme, and I can discuss one, too." Then 
Polemo recognized Marcus's Doric tongue, and, step- 
ping down, he conversed long and pleasantly with his 
visitor; and afterward they both declaimed, and each 
wondered at the other's power. 1 

The sophistical displays, which have formed the sub- 
ject of the present chapter, will be more fully under- 
stood if we give from the original a few descriptions of 
what actually took place on these occasions. There are 
here given translations of three passages, two from the 
pages of Philostratus, illustrative of academic life as it 
was at Athens in the second century, and one from 
Libanius, describing an event which took place at 
Antioch in the fourth century. 

Hippodromus [says Philostratus 2 ], though rather coun- 
trified in appearance, gave indication in his eyes, which 
were bright and keen, of wonderful spirit. This fact 
Megistias of Smyrna says he noticed, and Megistias had 

' Philos., 529. ■ 618, 619. 



258 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

a wide reputation as a physiognomist. The story he tells 
is this: Hippodromus, some time after the death of Hera- 
cleides, paid a visit to Smyrna. He had never been there 
before, and, after leaving the vessel, he walked up to the 
centre of the town, to see if he could fall in with any one 
who was educated in the native style of oratory. Seeing a 
temple, and some pedagogues and foot-boys sitting out- 
side with bundles of books slung from their shoulders in 
bags, he inferred that some distinguished man was teaching 
inside, and so walked in. Giving a word of greeting to 
Megistias, he sat down without asking any questions. 
Megistias thought that he had come to have a conversation 
about the class, and that he was perhaps the father or the 
guardian of one of the boys, and so he asked him which 
boy he wished to talk about. "You shall hear," said 
Hippodromus, "as soon as we are alone." Accordingly, 
after Marcus had finished quizzing his students, he said, 
"Now tell me what you have to say." "Let's exchange 
cloaks," said Hippodromus — Hippodromus had on a 
travelling cloak, and Megistias the speaker's gown. 
"What for ? " asked Marcus. " I wish to give you a sample 
of my oratory," replied Hippodromus. When he heard 
this, Megistias thought the man must be beside himself 
and really mad, but, seeing the sharp gleam of his eyes, 
and observing that he acted sensibly and as if in his right 
mind, he exchanged cloaks, and then, being requested so 
to do, set a theme. The theme was: The mage main- 
taining that he should die because he could not slay the 
mage who was a rake. When Hippodromus seated him- 
self in the sophist's chair, and then, after a few moments, 
jumped to his feet, Megistias was confirmed in his first 
impression that the man was deranged; and this that 
was art on Hippodromus's part, he thought madness. 
But when Hippodromus began his theme and spoke the 
words, "But, in my case, I am able ..." (aW* ifiavrov 
ye hvvapai . . . ), Megistias could not contain himself for 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 259 

admiration, but, running up to him, begged to know who 
he was. "I am," said the other, "Hippodromus of Thes- 
saly, and I have come to practise in your presence, because 
I wish, through one man of your learning, to receive in- 
struction in the Ionic style of speaking. But now hear me 
to the end." When he was near the end of his speech, all 
the people of education in Smyrna flocked to the door of 
Megistias's school, for the report quickly spread every- 
where that Hippodromus was in town. Hippodromus, 
taking up again the theme he had just discussed, repeated 
in different form the ideas he had before expressed, and, 
when he appeared in the public assembly, the people 
wondered at him and thought him worthy to be placed 
among the ancients. 

The second passage from Philostratus refers to the 
sophist Alexander and his visit to Athens. 1 

Hearing that Herodes was staying at Marathon and that 
all the young men had followed him thither, he sent a 
letter, asking for the Greeks, and Herodes replied, "I will 
come myself and bring the Greeks." The audience had 
now assembled in the theatre called the Agrippeium, which 
is in the Ceramicus, and, as the day wore on and Herodes 
did not appear, the Athenians began to get uneasy, think- 
ing that they were to be cheated out of the show, and they 
complained that it was a trick. Alexander was, therefore, 
obliged to come forward and begin his talk before He- 
rodes came. His talk was an encomium upon the city and 
a defence of himself for not having come to Athens before. 
It was of fitting length, resembling the epitome of a Pana- 
thenaic speech. Alexander made so good an impression 
on the Athenians that, even before he began to speak, a 
murmur ran through the crowd, showing that they were 
pleased with his appearance. The theme that was chosen 

« 571-573. 



260 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

for him to discuss was: The urging of the Scythians to a 
return to their former nomad life, since to live in cities 
made them sick. After a moment's hesitation, the sophist 
leaped from his seat with a beaming face, as if bringing to 
his auditors an earnest of what he could say. While he was 
speaking, Herodes came in, wearing, as was his custom at 
Athens in summer, his Arcadian cap, to shield his face 
from the sun, and at the same time perhaps to show that 
he had just arrived from a journey. Alexander, taking 
advantage of the occasion, spoke in dignified and clear- 
ringing terms of the presence of Herodes, and then left it 
to him to decide whether he would listen to the theme 
that had already been started or would himself set an- 
other. Herodes looking at the audience and saying that 
he would do whatever seemed best to them, all agreed that 
Alexander should go on with the Scythian theme; and, in- 
deed, he was treating the theme most brilliantly, as is evi- 
dent from the speech itself. In another way also Alexander 
displayed wonderful power: for, although, before Herodes 
came, he treated his theme most brilliantly, he expressed 
the same ideas, after Herodes's arrival, in different words 
and different rhythms so successfully, that his hearers, 
who heard him twice, did not feel that he was saying the 
same thing over. The most famous passage in the first 
speech, "From standing, even water contracts disease" 
(ecrT09 zeal to vScop voael), he afterward changed thus, 
"Even of waters, those that are in motion are the sweeter" 
(fcal vSdrcov rjSico ra 7r\avd)fjL€va). The following, too, is 
from Alexander's Scythians: "When Ister froze, I rode to 
the south; when Ister opened, I went to the north, entire 
of body, and not, as now, on a bed of pain. For what 
harm can come to man if he follow the seasons?" (kcu 
irrjyvvfJLevov fiev "larpov 7rpo? /lecrr] fjbj3piav rfkavvov, 
\vofxevov he i^copovv 7T/90? ap/crov cucipaios to aco/jia kcli 
oirj£ (bcnrep vvvX /cei/Aevos. tI yap av irdQoi Becvbv avOpco- 
•7T05 Tat? wpais iiro/jLevos;). At the end of the speech, when 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 261 

inveighing against the city as a stifling habitation, he 
closed thus: "Spread wide the gates, I wish to take breath" 
(a\\' avaTreracrov Ta? 7rvXa?, avairvevaai 6e\(o). Then, 
running up to Herodes and embracing him, he said, "Now 
you entertain me," and Herodes replied, "Indeed I will, 
seeing that you have entertained me so brilliantly." 

The ability to express the same thought in several 
different ways was, we see, a thing highly prized, and 
its effect on the sophistic writings has been remarked 
upon before. 1 

The third passage describes the return of Libanius to 
his home, Antioch, after long absence and in the height 
of his fame, and the welcome accorded him by his 
countrymen. 2 

Fortune favored me . . . when I found that I had to 
prove my mettle in a contest. For, first, there was no need 
that men should go about from house to house to raise an 
audience by flattery — the news had but to be spread 
abroad that I was going to speak. Secondly, the people 
did not wait for daybreak before they filled the council- 
chamber in every part; on that occasion for the first time 
the room seemed not large enough to hold the crowd that 
wished to enter. When I asked my foot-boy if anybody 
had come, he told me that there were some who had slept 
there overnight. My uncle, with fear and trembling, led 
me in; I followed, smiling — for Fortune filled my heart 
with confidence — and, looking upon the throng, as Achilles 
looked upon the armor, I was glad. Thus, at the very 
outset, before a word was spoken, I filled the audience 
with wonder. How can I fittingly describe the tears that 
followed my introductory speech? Not a few learned 

i P. 246. * Lib., i. 62, 12. 



262 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

that speech by heart before they left the room. How can 
I describe the frenzy with which my second speech was 
greeted? There was not a man who, in the matter of 
leaping and showing in every way his delight, was any- 
thing but young, not a man who was anything but quick 
and active, not a man who was anything but full of strength. 
Even such as had the gout and could not comfortably 
stand, still stood; and when I told them to sit down, they 
said they could not, for the speech. Many times they in- 
terrupted me while I was speaking and begged the emperor 
to restore me to my home and countrymen. Having kept 
this up till they grew tired, they turned once more to 
the speech, and blessed both themselves and me. . . . 
No more glad was that day to Agamemnon whereon he 
captured Troy, than was this day to me, when I met with 
such success. Even when I passed on my way to the 
bath, the people followed at my heels, eager to touch my 
person. 

We have, however, not yet exhausted the fields of 
the sophist's activity. For it must be remembered that 
the sophist was not only a teacher of youth, who at 
times came forth from the school-room to give in public 
an exhibition of his art; he was the orator — the Court 
orator of the times. If a temple was to be dedicated, 
if an officer of the government — a provincial magis- 
trate or the ruler of a diocese — was to be welcomed to 
his district, if a petition was to be preferred to the em- 
peror or the emperor's representative, the sophist was 
the one man to whom all turned to perform that duty; 
and on numberless other occasions his services were 
called into requisition. At public festivals he was 
always in prominence, and, when travelling from place 
to place, he frequently addressed in more or less formal 



PUBLIC DISPLAYS 263 

discourse the people of the towns through which he 
passed. The speeches that were delivered on all these 
occasions were of the kind called epideictic, and were 
generally eulogistic in character. The rhetorician 
Menander has left us a curious treatise dealing with 
this class of speeches, and in it he has given us detailed 
instructions as to how we are to handle this or that 
person or thing. We are told, 1 for instance, how to 
praise a country, how to praise a city, how to praise an 
acropolis, how to praise a harbor, how to praise a gulf, 
and so on. If the object that you wish to praise has 
both good and bad qualities, it is always better to dwell 
on the good and omit to mention the bad, or, making 
little of the bad, show how the good predominate. If 
it is a city that you wish to eulogize, you may do so 
from the point of view of its situation or from that of 
its inhabitants. If you take the point of view of its 
situation, you may speak of its climate, of its position 
with regard to the sea and the land, of its streams, etc. 
If the city lies on a plain, with mountains about it, you 
should speak of the defence that these mountains offer 
against a foreign foe; if it is built on hilly ground, with 
a plain before it, you should compare it to a light- 
house, serving as a welcoming beacon to approaching 
friends. 

Not all the epideictic speeches, however, were so 
ostensibly encomiastic as these, though all that were not 
actually in the line of censure were of an encomiastic 
nature. Wedding speeches, birthday speeches, speeches 
of welcome and of farewell, these and many others 

1 Speng., Rh. Gr., iii. pp. 344 ft. 



264 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

came within the province of the orator in those days, 
and each had its own peculiar form and style, being cast 
in a mould of its own and constructed according to 
fixed rules. 1 

1 It is not the intention in this book to speak at length of the 
literary, as distinguished from the oratorical, activity of the 
sophists, but one curious tendency may here receive casual 
notice. This is the tendency which produced such encomiastic 
enormities as Lucian's Encomium on a Fly and Synesius's In 
Praise of Baldness. Other authors went even further in this line, 
as when they wrote in praise of vomiting, or of fever, or in com- 
mendation of a porridge-pot (Plut., De rect. rat. aud., 13). It is, 
of course, not always easy to say what was spoken and what was 
not; nearly all compositions were written as if to be spoken. 
The sophist Heracleides wrote a piece called irbvov iyK^mov. 
Another sophist, seeing him engaged on the work, waggishly 
erased the w of irSvov, and handed him back the book (Philos., 
614, 615). For the literary activity of the sophists, see Rohde, 
Gr. Rom., pp. 343 ff. For the epideictic literature, see Burgess, 
Epideictic Literature. 



CHAPTER XII 

SCHOOL-HOUSES, HOLIDAYS, ETC.; THE SCHOOL 

OF ANTIOCH 

There remain to be considered, in the present chap- 
ter, a few matters relative to the more or less external 
features of the class and class-room instruction, to- 
gether with the question of the arrangement of the 
school system as a whole in Antioch in the fourth cen- 
tury. 

At the beginning of the academic year the sophist 
commonly opened his course with an introductory lect- 
ure, or address, to his students. 1 Old students were 
welcomed back, and new were taken into the fold. 
Himerius on these occasions usually had a graceful and 
appropriate word for each of the different nationalities 
represented in his class — some myth, it might be, or a 
flattering allusion to the students' country or country- 
men. Sometimes he recommended to the care of the 
older students those who had just come, and at other 
times he explained to his class what they were expected 
to do and what not to do. " Come, then," he says in his 

1 Lib., ep. f 407 (probably a public address or one open to all 
students, for at its close seventeen new students joined the class; 
it was accompanied by a d/iiWa irpSs rt t&v Arj/xoadivovs); Himer., 
or., xii. (inscribed els &px&* <rirov8£)v). Apparently such ad- 
dresses as Himer., or., x, xi, xv, xxviii, xxix.; ec, xv, xviii, xix, 

xxii. were of this order. 

265 



266 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

flowery style, 1 "before I initiate you into the rites of my 
school, let me tell you what you are allowed to do and 
what you are not allowed to do. Let every one give ear, 
whether he now comes for the first time to be initiated 
or has already reached the last stage of initiation. 
You must throw aside the ball, and put your attention 
on the pencil. Close the playground, and open the 
Muses' workshop. Run no more about the lanes and 
alleys of the town; stay at home and write instead. 
Avoid the public theatre; give ear to a better theatre. 
Luxury and daintiness do not fit well with study; 
show yourselves, while with me, severe in your lives 
and superior to luxury. This is my proclamation, this 
my law — much in little. Those of you who listen and 
obey, shall sing lacchus, Iacchus many times , for those 
of you who heed not my words and disobey, I hide my 
light and close the temple of my wisdom. This procla- 
mation is for you all, but especially for you, young men, 
who are newcomers and have just joined my class." 
At the end of the term the sophist took leave of his 
students in a farewell speech. 2 

The sophist met his class, sometimes in a public 
building, as a temple, a city hall, or the like, sometimes 
in hired quarters, and sometimes in his own house, 
where he often had a private theatre, or lecture-hall, 
fitted up after the pattern of the public halls. In the 
fifth century, at Constantinople, as we have elsewhere 
seen, sophists who held state appointments had rooms 
assigned to them in the Capitol. At Antioch, Athens, 

1 Or., xxii. 7. In or., xv. 3, the younger students are recom- 
mended to the care of the older. « Cf. Himer., ec., xi. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 267 

and probably other places, school buildings were erected 
at the public expense. At Rome the Athenaeum was the 
centre of university life. Libanius, during the most of 
the time he was at Antioch, held his school in the city 
hall — the ^ovXevTrjpiov} When he settled at Antioch, 

1 In a temple: lep6p (Philoa., 618), rd 7-775 ti$x»?s lep6v (Lib., ep., 
86), tirl Tt tup iepup (ib., i. 71, 6). The PovXevr^piov of Lib, i. 
238, 4 was a temple (tA Upbv, 236, 4; rbv veAv, 240, 9). It would 
seem, from the words which the old man addresses to Libanius 
in Lib., i. 71, 5, that certain temples were open to the occupancy 
of anybody. The suggestion from Lib., ii. 377, 4, and 378, 14, 
is that a room in the ^ovXevr^piov, once occupied, was for the 
private and sole use of the occupant. It is possible that Libanius, 
after his appointment as sophist at Antioch, was given such an 
apartment. In that case, however, he received his appointment 
as early as 354 (see below). Notwithstanding the reasonable 
doubt that may be raised whether he was receiving a salary at 
Antioch at the same time that he was receiving one at Constanti- 
nople (see pp. 176, 177), there are not lacking other slight indica- 
tions that he was holding an official appointment at Antioch as 
early as 354 or 355. Zenobius, who was at the head of a school 
of rhetors at Antioch (Lib., ii. 204-223; 312, 17 ff.; p. 192, above), 
died in 354 (see below), and Libanius succeeded to his position. 
The salary which Zenobius had enjoyed, however, instead of 
being given to Libanius, was assigned to the four rhetors. We 
may conjecture, as the reason for this transference, the fact that 
Libanius was now given an imperial salary; the salary of Zeno- 
bius, which was a municipal donation, was thus left available 
for the under-teachers. (The Twenty-ninth Oration of Libanius 
[the Thirty-first in Forster], in which Libanius appears as the 
sophist of Antioch, Forster, ed. Lib., iii. p. 119, assigns to 355 or 
thereabouts; it certainly belongs to the period 355-361, but a 
few passages [204, 1; 205, 15 ff.; 210, 15 R] suggest a date nearer 
361). Again, Libanius seems, in ep., 1247, to refer to a salary 
held by himself in Antioch in 355. Libanius constantly speaks 
of the pov\evr^piov as the scene of his labors — as display-room and 
as school-room (e. g., i. 73, 4; 77, 8; 134, 12; 238, 4; ii. 375, 11; 
378, 14; 430, 15; 471, 14; iii. 176; ep., 367, 1083). Ep., 1083 
dates, according to Seeck (Briefe d. Lib., p. 322), from 355. 
In fact, we find Libanius in the povXevr-^piov shortly after his 
occupancy of the room near the market-place and before Zeno- 



268 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

he was in great distress because his students were so 
few. "I had, meeting at my house," he says, 1 "a class 
of fifteen, the most of whom I had brought with me 
from Constantinople, but I did not yet hold a public 
appointment. My friends were discouraged, and I was 
thoroughly disheartened. Oppressed, like Peleus's son, 
by inactivity, I called myself 'a weight upon the earth/ 
and even had recourse to drugs to save my mind. I 
had found things at Antioch not what I had expected, 
and to Constantinople I could not return without en- 
countering ridicule. At this time there came to me an 
old man, who told me that it was no wonder that I did 

bius's death, which was in 354 (Lib., i. 73, 4). After his removal 
to Antioch in the spring of 354, therefore, Libanius taught first 
in his own house (ib., i. 70, 13), then in the hired apartment by 
the market-place (ib., i. 71, 8), and, thirdly, probably after his 
appointment as official sophist and still in the year 354, in the 
pov\evTi?ipi,ov. The question then arises, When did he teach in 
the temple of Fortune (ib., ep., 86), and when, if at all, in the 
Museum (ib., i. 71, 10)? The letter in which the temple of Fort- 
une is mentioned as being the former scene of his labors was 
written in 359. His occupancy of this temple, therefore, must 
have been in 354, after he moved out of the hired quarters and 
before he entered the povXevrrfptov, or it must have been a tem- 
porary occupancy between 354 and 359. As regards the Museum, 
the single passage in which this building seems to be mentioned 
under this name (ib., i. 71, 10) does not make it clear that 
Libanius ever had quarters therein, while from other passages it 
would seem that, though Libanius was stationed in the Pov\evr^piov, 
the other sophists, or, at least, all others except his own x°pb* 
(ib., ii. 210, 218), had quarters elsewhere (ib., ii. 375, 11; 430, 15). 
The Museum may at this time have been the centre of the uni- 
versity life at Antioch, as the Athenaeum was of that at Rome, 
and, later, the Capitol of that at Constantinople. Libanius was 
occupying the /SovXeurifaiov as late as 393 (ib., ep., 986, 995). 
There were public recitation buildings at Antioch (ib., i. 334, 14), 
and at Athena (Eunap., p. 69: tQv drjuoatwr de&rpuv.) At Nico- 
' i. 70, 13. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 269 

not succeed when I lay at my ease in my own house, 
for, of course, those who sat in public had the advan- 
tage. 'If you wish/ he said, 'to see how many there 
are who thirst for knowledge, go to some temple/ 
This advice of the old man I did not precisely follow, 
but, inducing a shopkeeper down town to move, I in- 
stalled myself in his quarters, and thus set up my chair 
close to the market-place. The situation did some- 
thing, for the number of my students — fifteen, as I 
have just said — was increased more than threefold. 
The Museum, however, which was a great help to those 
that held it, was in the hands of my rivals." 

media Libanius at one time held his classes in the public baths 
(Lib., i. 40, 9), but this was unusual. Displays were given at 
Athens in the Agrippeium and in rb t&v tcxvitwv povXevrrfpiov 
(Philos., 571, 580), perhaps also in the Lyceum (Schemmel, Neue 
Jahrb. 22, p. 499). Public theatres for sophistical displays 
were erected at Smyrna (Aristeid., i. 376). A building for school 
purposes at Treves was the Maeniana (Eumen., Pro rest, scol., 2). 
For the Athenaeum at Rome, see p. 85, Dio Cass., lxxiii. 17; Jul. 
Capit., Pert., 11; Lamprid., Alex. Sev. f 35; Script. Hist. Aug., 
Gord. sen., 3; Hulsebos, De educ. et instit. apud Rom., p. 207. Of 
course, private teachers often taught at the pupils' houses (Cod. 
Th., xiv. 9, 3 [Cod. Jus., xi. 19] ). Hime ius gave some of his 
speeches ivtiov, 'at home' (e. g., or., xv. xvii.; cf. Lib., i. 367, 9). 
Sosipatra taught in her own house (Eunap., p. 38). Private 
theatres (ib., p. 69 : iv rots 15iutuco?s dedrpois). See also the descrip- 
tion of Julian's theatre (ib.). The theatre is also spoken of as a 
place for displays at Antioch (Lib., ep., 767, 782). The common 
words for 'recitation building' are 5i5a<ri<a\etov (Lib., ii. 207, 9), 
HovtreTov or /xovaeia (ib., i. 213, 8; ep., 1215), iratSaycoyeiov (Themis., 
258 b); but other words were sometimes used, as <rx°M (Plut., 
Pericl., 35), iraidevr'/ipiop (Diod. Sic, xiii. 27), Siarpi^ (Himer., 
ec, xvii. title); less prosaically, ipyaar-^piov (TocpiarQv (Lib., ii. 79, 
11), ipyaar^piop M.ov<ru>v (Himer., or., xxii. 7), ipyaar^piov \6yuv 
(Lib., i. 103, 15), rdv M.ov<tQv o->7k6s (ib., ep., 1594). A 'lecture- 
room ' is diarpov (Eunap., p. 69), diarp^ (Philos., 529), aKpoarr/piov 
(Himer., or., 22, title), <f>povTi<rTifipiov (Procop., ep., 114, 138). 



270 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Of the school system of no ancient Greek city of this 
period have we so much information as of that of 
Antioch. And yet the details even of this system are 
often hard to make out: Libanius, our principal in- 
formant, leaves us all too often to conjecture and in- 
ference. The matter is most important, however, for, 
aside from its intrinsic interest, its determination may 
cast light on the school systems of other Greek cities of 
the second, third, and fourth centuries A. D. 

In the speech ' which Libanius addressed to the 
municipal council of Antioch when, some time between 
355 and 361, he came before that body to plead for a 
special dispensation in favor of the four rhetors to 
whom had been assigned the single salary of the sophist 
Zenobius, he tells the relation in which he stood to 
these four rhetors. They were, he says, his associates 
and his fellow-workers in the same ranks, they 'sang* 
(i. e. y taught and declaimed) in company with him and 
were members of the same 'chorus' (%0/w?), or circle; 2 
they lived with him; 3 they were under his direction; 4 
he was thoroughly acquainted with their condition; 5 
he was the 'coryphaeus/ or leader, of the 'chorus'; 8 
for all these reasons he appeared as their spokesman. 
These expressions seem sufficiently clear, and yet we 
are immediately confronted by several questions. The 

1 Or., xxix. R (ii. 204 ff.). 

3 ii. 218, 5: ruv <rvvbvr<av, t&v (rvvreTayixhuiv, rdv cvp.irovoivT<j)v y 
tG>v <rvvq.8bvT(i)v } t&v rbv avrbp TrXrjpovvTuv x°P^ v - 

« ii. 217, 19. 

4 ii. 207, 10: el<rl St ovrol /xoi T^rrapes ijyo6p.epoi rots vtois iirl 7-7) v 
yvdxnv twv apxo-lw. 

6 ii. 208, 25; 218, 5. 6 ii. 210, 13. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 271 

first question relates to the constitution of the school it- 
self, if school we may call it. Were these five — the four 
' rhetors ' \ and Libanius — the sole members of the school 
or were there others ? No mention of others is made in 
this speech, but it is not improbable that the school, 
if not at this time, at least later, had in its corps of 
teachers one or more ' grammarians,' as well as a teacher 
of Latin eloquence. One ' grammarian ' Libanius cer- 

1 They are consistently called 'rhetors,' and not 'sophists,' in 
this oration, but apparently the name here is simply a less dis- 
tinguished one than 'sophists,' and refers to teachers of elo- 
quence who were sub-masters; perhaps they taught the more 
elementary and technical parts of the subject, or, possibly, they 
dealt with the more practical, as distinguished from the ' sophis- 
tical,' or literary, aspects of it. Cf. p. 220, n. 4. They are 
referred to in ii. 221, 9 as ot x&P av v-^v *x 0V<Tlv $ v ^ T€ Ka -l irpoa-rjyoptg 
rjj vvv KpaTotxTTj artpyovaiv, fj<Tav 5' &p, ehrep £{ioti\oyro, rov iravrbs 
i]yep.bv€s, ws 7} ye dvvap.is irdpeo-Tip, the meaning of which seems 
to be that they are satisfied with being simply 'rhetors,' or sub- 
masters, though they could, if they wished, set up schools of 
their own and be known as 'sophists.' The reference in the 
similar passage, iii. 446, 18: 8s dyaira p.kv rjj Sevrtpy x&P?, is to 
the position of 'grammarian.' Cf. also i. 203, 15: c/s AXXous 
6p6vovs teal ir polyopias (professors of other branches). The 
same distinction between 'rhetor' and 'sophist' is probably 
made in Jul., ep., 42, 422 D. The word 'rhetor' is often used of 
a public speaker (Lib., i. 617, 18; cf. Brandsfatter, Leipz. Stud., 
15, p. 239); frequently it is used as identical with 'sophist' 
(compare Dig., xxxviii. 5, 27 and C. I. G., xii. 1, No. 83; see also 
Dig., xxvii. 1, 6, where <ro<t>i<TTal gropes is also used). Orator 
is similarly used of a sophist (Cod. Th., xiv. 9, 3). iirayyiWeo-dai 
SiSdaxeiv, profiteri, is found (Jul., ep., 42, 422 C), but it is doubtful 
if the absolute use of ^7ra77<f\\e<r0cu recorded by Hatch (Hibbert 
Lectures, 1888, p. 44, n. 1) was propagated. iwayyeXia and 
iirdyyeK/m with defining word are found (Epictet., iv. 8, 14; 8, 9). 
In the Latin, we have magister (Cod. Th., xiv. 9), professor (ib., vi. 
21, 1), doctor (ib., xiii. 3, 5), prceceptor (ib., xiii. 3, 16), antistes (Cod. 
Jus., x. 47, 1), and (of the law) antecessor (Dig., prcef. omnem, title), 
some of these with defining word. For Mvap.is, facultas, branch 
of knowledge, see Epictet., i. 20, 1. See p. 277, n. 3; p. 296, n. 1. 



272 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tainly had assisting him in the year 36 1, 1 and in several 
letters of the years 356 and 357 Libanius urges a certain 
Olympius to return from Rome and take charge of the 
Latin department of his school, under appointment 
from the city. 2 Frequent reference is also made to 
under-teachers who were assisting Libanius in his work, 
but whether these teachers were all rhetors or not is 
uncertain. 3 The assistants in Libanius's school were in 
receipt of an official salary, 4 and it was their duty to 
conduct such lessons as the sophist imposed upon them. 5 

1 Calliopius (Lib., ep., 540; cf. ep., 591; iii. 446, 18, if this is the 
same man: see Seeck, Brief e d. Lib., p. 102). 

*Ep., 448, 453, 481. 

» Gaudentius in 356-7 (Lib., ep., 457); Uranius in 358 (ib., 
ep., 360); Eusebius in 388 (ib., ep., 822, 823, 824, 825, 826, 827); 
Calliopius (ib., ep., 971, 983); Thalassius, Libanius's secretary, 
who also assisted in the management of the boys and as a teacher 
(ib., ep., 842, 844, 847, 856; ii. 393, 14; 404, 14; cf. ep., 850; ii. 390, 
10; 401, 15; 409, 12). The members of the school are again 
referred to in ep., 813. Libanius had an assistant in Constan- 
tinople (ib., ep., 215). See Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 42. There 
seems to be a reference to under-teachers in Greg. Naz., or., 
xliii. 24, where the departure of Basil from Athens is described 
(see p. 332): "The members of our college corps, and with them 
many even of the teachers, standing in a ring about us " (irepi- 
crrdvTes Tjfids 6 t&v iratpcov Kal tjXIkuv x°P^, zgti hh &v Kal 8i8a<TKd\u}i>). 
Also in Eunapius's account of Libanius; Libanius, says Eunapius 
(p. 96; see p. 298, below), did not join the school of the sophist 
Epiphanius, nor that of the far-famed Proaeresius, " fearing that 
he should be swamped in the crowd of students and the great 
reputation of the teachers" (ws iv t<£ irXi^ei tQp dfxiXrjT&v Kal t<JJ 
neyidei rrjs 86i-Tjs ru>v SiSaaKdXuv Ka\v<pdr)<r6fxevos). Possibly, how- 
ever, in the latter passage the plural refers to the two teachers, 
Epiphanius and Proaeresius, especially as the singular is used 
farther down on the page (reus ixZp bfuXlais Kal awovalais . . . 
Adxwra irapeylpero, Kal rtp SidacrKdXy tis dx^-Vpbs °^ K ^ v )- 

* See or., xxix. R, and ep., 825. 

s On one occasion a pupil of Libanius, before he could advance 
to ra TeXedrcpa ypd<peiv, had to go through a certain book (Lib., ii. 




THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 273 

In case the sophist was sick or for any other reason was 
unable to meet his classes, one of the assistants took his 
place. The sophist seems to have had a certain amount 
of authority over the assistants even in matters not con- 
nected with the class-room. 1 Whether Libanius was the 
Head of the school simply by virtue of his distinction 
as a teacher and orator, or by special appointment, either 
from the council or the emperor, is not perfectly clear, 
but apparently his position was official and carried with 
it an official salary. 2 

ther questions which arise are: Did these five 
sophists constitute the entire sophistical outfit of the city 
at this time, or were there other teachers of eloquence 
at Antioch, either teaching individually or forming a 
school or schools similar to this school, and, if there 
were other schools, did the members of these also, as 
did the members of Libanius's school, have official 
appointment and salary? Notwithstanding that from 
one passage in this speech we should be inclined to 
infer that these were the only sophists teaching at 
Antioch at this time, 3 we can hardly believe that such 
was the case. The city was a famous seat of sophistry, 
and the mention of other teachers of the subject work- 

273, 1 ff.). Libanius did not wish to make a class for the subject 
smaller than nine or ten, and, this number not being forthcoming, 
he handed the boy over to another teacher, presumably an 
assistant. In the meantime he himself continued with the ad- 
vanced work. Lecturing on the interpretation of history and 
speeches was done among the Greeks, according to Quintilian 
(Inst, or., ii. 5, 3), by assistant teachers. 

• Lib., ii. 224, 13 ff. 'See p. 176 /. 

* ii. 218, 13: rots ixiv ye ^ropcriu i) ZrjpofiLov <rvvaywvl£erai yrj. 
irpb dk tCjv &Wwp k. r. X. It is possible that they formed the 
only official school. 



274 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ing there at various times is not infrequent. 1 It is 
even probable that in some cases these were members 
of schools. Thus, Eudsemon, a 'grammarian/ and 
Harpocration, a sophist, were working together in some 
sort of educational partnership at Antioch in the year 
358. 2 Further, the mention in the passage above re- 
ferred to and elsewhere of a 'chorus of sophists' seems 
to impart to the term a certain definiteness as a unit 
that suggests the possible presence in a city of as many 
as two or three schools at once. 3 Such schools, if schools 
there were, may have been private schools, in the sense 

1 Thus, Harpocration in 358 (Lib., ep., 367); Acacius up to 361, 
when he finally withdrew to Phoenicia (ib., ep., 277, 292, 407, 469, 
666, 1254); another previous to 360 (ib., ii. 220, 20), believed by 
Sievers (Leben des Lib., p. 199), and by Seeck (Briefe d. Lib., p. 
245), to be Priscio; it can hardly be Acacius, as Forster believes 
(ed. Lib., iii. p. 144), unless or., xxix, R was delivered in 361 (see 
p. 267, n. 1), for Acacius did not finally leave Antioch until 
that year; Latin sophists about 387 (Lib., i. 153, 7; ii. 345, 1; 
iii. 261, 5); an Egyptian and a Phoenician in 384 (ib., ii. 372, 9); 
after the death of Julian (ib., iii. 451, 23); cf. ii. 276, 5 (not long 
after 387); 311, 17 (in 386); 115, 10 (in 385); 353, 11; 354, 9; 359, 
17 (before 384); see also or., xliii. (ii. 420-432). For the dating 
of Libanius's orations, see Forster's ed. 

* Lib., ep., 367; cf. 258, 371. 

8 Lib., i. 305, 16: rb 8t fietfov if (Karh) iroXXA ffrb/xara ical <ro<f>i<TTwv 
Xopbv us olbv re fityiaTov 317, 7: tocrre (patrjs av atirljv xopbv riva 
tlvai (rocpHTT&v. In Lib., ii. 256, 18: tuji> pyrbpuv rbv x°P^ v > an d 
i. 335, 11: rpets x°P°i pyrbpuv, the reference is to public speakers 
(also in ib., ep., 248) — 'companies' or 'firms,' possibly; though 
may they not also, perhaps, have been members of schools? x°P^ 
was sometimes used of a 'ring,' a 'gang' (e. g., Lib., i. 437, 9; 
459, 17); sometimes of the audience of a sophist (Luc, Rhet. 
prcec, 21). Lib., iii. 86, 12: ^ei 5^ wore ical b t&v <pi\o<rb<puv il- 
'A7ra/xe£as x°P^ s f & v ° Kopv<paios deoTs £($Kei, ical fiiKpa (rvyyevbfxevos 
&p4<rTpe<f>€P, however, seems to suggest but a single x°pt> s (of phi- 
losophers) to a city, or at least to Apamea. For x°P^> of a 
student-corps, see p. 296. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 275 

that the members had no official appointment and 
salary, though doubtless subject to official supervision 
and direction. 

/Sophists and rhetors, however, were not the only 
teachers who were established at Antioch: there were 
also philosophers, ' grammarians/ lawyers, and vari- 
ous others of lower grade. 1 All these, together with 
the sophists and rhetors, constituted the School of 
Antioch, and of this School — not simply of his own 
corps of rhetors — Libanius was Head. He had gen- 
eral , oversight and supervision of matters pertaining to 
the teachers and schools of the city, subject, of course, 
to the implied direction of the municipal council and 
the emperor, 2 and he acted as the mouthpiece of council 
and teachers in their dealings with each other. It even 
seems to have lain within his prerogative to make the 
selection of a new teacher, and his power was great 
enough to compel at times a teacher's acceptance of a 
call or to increase a teacher's salary. When it was 
determined to establish a chair of law at Antioch, and 
the council had passed an order putting the determina- 
tion into effect, Libanius set about to secure a man to 
fill the place. He fixed upon Domnio, or Domninus, 
who was then teaching at Berytus. In the letter which 
Libanius wrote to Domnio offering him the chair and 
urging him to come to Antioch, he spoke as one who 

1 The mention of schools and teachers at Antioch is frequent 
(e. g., Lib., ii. 600, 14; 601, 13; iii. 261, 4). 

2 Lib., ii. 207, 8 ff. Doubtless, as a sophist himself, he had 
more intimate relations with the sophists than with the other 
teachers of the School (#>., ii. 218, 5), and he, of course, had 
closer relations with the members of his own x°P^ s than with 
other sophists. 



276 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

was in charge of affairs and whose privilege it was to 
select the teachers and, if he so desired, to compel their 
attendance. 1 On another occasion Libanius was in- 
strumental in increasing a sophist's salary. 2 Some- 
times parents brought their boys to Libanius for guid- 
ance and advice in the matter of studies, and Libanius 
placed the boys among the different sophists. 3 Again, 
the sophists themselves would come to Libanius after 
school hours and make such complaints with regard to 
their condition as occurred to them. 4 Bv no means were 
the different sophists of the town always harmonious, 
however; we see them receiving one another's renegade 
students and vilifying one another's good name, and 
Libanius found it necessary once, in the general interest 
of all, to recommend common action putting an end to 
this state of affairs. 5 The importance of the position 
which Libanius held as Head of the School of Antioch 
is shown by the fact that, as he says of himself when at 
the height of his career, he had no rival. The under- 
sophists, being none of them superior to another, were 
obliged to compete for the favor of the students, but 

• Ep., 209 (360 A. D.; Seeck, Brief e d. Lib., p. 372). Cf. ib., 
ep., 1240 and 1277 a (which Seeck, pp. 322, 327, assigns to the 
years 355 and 356 respectively, but which seem to belong to 
about the same time as ep., 209). See also Libanius's letters to 
Olympius, urging him to accept a position at Antioch (p. 272, 
n. 2), and his letter to Acacius, in which he says that he could 
compel Acacius to return to Antioch if he desired (ep., 277). 
So Themistius called sophists from various places to build up 
the University of Constantinople (Lib., ep., 367, 371). 

2 Lib., i. 76, 7. ■ Lib., ii. 420, 16. 

4 Lib., ii. 430, 15. It appears from this that while Libanius 
(and, probably, his staff) taught in the senate-house, the other 
sophists had other quarters (see p. 267, n. 1). 

6 Lib., or., xliii. (ii. 420-432). See p. 326. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 277 

not so he, who was overseer of them all. 1 It was in 
virtue of this position as Head of the School that he was 
called by John Chrysostom "the Sophist of Antioch." 2 
In a passage in one of his orations Libanius takes 
occasion to describe the etiquette that was observed in 
the conduct of the members of the School toward their 
Head. 3 There had been two Heads preceding himself. 
The first of these had been a native of Ascalon, in Pales- 
tine — a man tyrannical in temper and strict in his 
requirement of the observance of form. Whenever he 
appeared in the school-room, 4 all the teachers had been 
expected to rise and attend him as long as he remained 
or until he gave them permission to sit. No one was to 
raise his eves or look his master in the face, but all were 
to acknowledge his supremacy. He had even been 
known to threaten or to strike a teacher on occasion. 
Imposing a certain tax (the nature of which is unknown) 

> Lib., ii. 421, 1. 

*Or. de S. Babyl. contra Jul. et gent., 18 (Migne, i. p. 560: 
6 TTJs 7r6Xews (ro^to-rijs); Suidas, s. v. Aifidvios. 

»ii. 312, 4-314, 12. The reference here seems to be to the 
whole School, and not to the ' circle ' of sophists simply, rofowv, 
in 312, 6, which Reiske supposes to refer to the students, evi- 
dently refers to the teachers, while in 313, 4-6 the teachers are, 
as the context shows, again meant; though it is true that a-vpetuai 
is a common word referring to the intercourse of teachers and 
students. If the 'circle' of sophists is meant, it is hard to see 
how the Head could fail to know all their names, their number 
being small, but this might well be the case if all the teachers of 
all grades are referred to. It is to be noticed that Libanius here 
speaks of 'the teachers' (rods 5ida<rKd\ovs, 312, 5), whereas the 
sophists are called 'the teachers of eloquence' (toi>s 5iSa<ricd\ov$ 
rdv \6ywv, 206, 21; rods 8ida(TKd\ovs, 204, 3, is again the teachers 
in general). Cf. KadrjyriT^s (Greg. Nys., De castigat., 312) and 
"K6y<i>v Kadrjyrjr^s (Agath., ii. 29, p. 68 c). 

i Several taught in the same room* therefore. 



278 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

on the students, he had made the teachers responsible 
for the payment of this. The second Head, also a 
native of Palestine, had been of an entirely different dis- 
position from the first. He had not aimed at the same 
personal ascendancy, nor had he even been acquainted 
with all the teachers by name. Libanius, as he himself 
affirms, was different from either. Affable and genial, 
he mingled freely and on equal terms with the teachers, 
allowing them to jest in his presence and oftentimes 
himself taking part in the sport. 

It is probable that the school system of Antioch found 
its counterpart, though generally on a smaller scale, in 
most cities of the Greek world at this time. There was 
apparently a school at Gaza similar to that of Harpo- 
cration and Eudsemon mentioned above, 1 and another 
at Apamea resembling Libanius's, 2 while Themistius, 
doubtless, held much the same position in the School of 
Constantinople that Libanius held in that of Antioch. 
Those who filled the chair of sophistry at Athens in the 
second and third centuries seem to have been at the 
same time Heads of the School of Athens, and the posi- 
tion for which there was such competition after the 
death of the sophist Julian in the fourth century was 
doubtless the same as that held by these men in the 
preceding centuries. 

At Antioch teaching was usually confined to the fore- 
noon, the hours after the mid-day meal being left free of 
lessons, 3 but this rule was probably often broken; 

« Lib., iii. 189, 8 ft. » Lib., iii. 86, 12. 

3 Lib., ii. 430, 16; 600, 1; iii. 256, 5; ep., 473; cf. ep., 923; ii. 
316, 2. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 279 

Libanius at one time had so many students that he 
could not get to the end of them till evening, 1 while 
Acacius sometimes taught till night. 2 At other places 
the custom in this regard may have been different. 
Philostratus says that the most of the sophist's day was 
devoted to teaching. 3 Lucian intimates that children 
went to school both in the morning and in the after- 
noon. 4 Probably a difference was made between the 
elementary and secondary schools and the university. 
Sometimes a man taught rhetoric in the forenoon and 
* grammar ' in the afternoon, 5 and Eunapius, while en- 
gaged in teaching rhetoric in the morning, himself 
took lessons in philosophy under Chrysanthius in the 
afternoon. 6 

The long vacation extended from the early part of 
the summer until well into the autumn. 7 Often, how- 
ever, sophists gave displays during the summer months, 
and these were sometimes attended by the students 
who were in town. 8 Occasionally a sophist broke 

1 Lib., i. 73, 4; 74, 7; ep., 407. Sometimes the time was short- 
ened (ib., ep., 119). a Lib., ep., 277. 
•614. * De parasit., 61; cf. Amores, 45. 
8 Strabo, xiv. p. 650. See also Lib., ep., 1383. 

6 Eunap., p. 114. See, further, Grasberger, Erzieh. u. Unterr. 
im klass. Alterth., iii. 429, and Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 23. 

7 Generally winter is spoken of as the time when the schools 
were in session at Antioch, and summer as the time of vacation 
(e. g., Lib., ep., 319, 382, 394 a, 1036 a; i. 64, 10, 17; 199, 10; cf. ep., 
57, 1150). Once the middle of summer is mentioned as being the 
time when the schools closed (ib., i. 76, 1 and 3). At Athens 
(Himer., or., xiv. 3; xxii. 6). Libanius arrived at Athens, when 
he went to study there, in the autumn (Lib., i. 13, 5), and 
Eunapius at the time of the autumn equinox (Eunap., p. 74). 
At Constantinople (Lib., i. 55, 5 and 9; 62, 1). 

8 Lib., i. 64, 11 ff.; ep., 394 a. 



280 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

through the custom here referred to, and, as a mark of 
special consideration, took a student even in the sum- 
mer. 1 Holidays regularly occurred on the days of the 
pagan festivals. 2 Custom, however, prescribed that on 
certain other occasions as well the regular exercises of 
the day should be omitted. Thus, at Antioch, it was 
usual, when some distinguished man or the relative or 
friend either of the teacher or of one of the students 
died, for the teacher, perhaps accompanied by his class 
in a body, to honor the funeral with his presence. If 
this was not done, he spent the day in eulogizing with 
his students the dead man's virtues. 3 Again, when any 
one of the sophists held a public display, it was cus- 
tomary for all the students of all the sophists in the city 
to be released from further work on that day, and, in 
Libanius's school at least, the display of one of the stu- 
dents was the occasion for a similar holiday. 4 Irregu- 
lar 'cuts/ due to unforeseen circumstances, doubtless 
often occurred. Libanius lost every year a number of 
days by reason of his health, 5 and at the time of the 
great riot at Antioch the schools were closed for thirty- 

» Lib., ep., 87. 

* At the New Year's (Lib., i. 258, 16). At one time, at the 
festival of Artemis at Antioch (ib., i. 236, 15 ff.). Libanius took 
few holidays when he was at Athens (ib., i. 19, 8). At Antioch, 
when the public officials attended the theatre or the hippodrome, 
it would have been quite in order, says Libanius (ii. 427, 16-428, 
5), for the sophists to observe holidays, but, instead of that, they 
preferred to keep school. 

•Lib., ii. 277, 5-279, 10. «Lib., ii. 279, 11-281, 9; 268, 3. 

8 Lib., ii. 276, 1; 277, 2; iii. 145, 4. Sometimes the philosopher 
caroused too freely and was then obliged to omit his lessons on 
the following day (Luc, Hermot., 11). He then posted a notice 
on a board in front of his door, to the effect that there would be 
no school on that day. 



THE SCHOOL OF ANTIOCH, ETC. 281 

four days. 1 Otherwise the occasions when students who 
lived out of the city interrupted their studies to go home 
seem to have been few; the death or urgent need of 
some member of the family was generally required. 2 

1 Lib., ii. 269, 1. Sometimes students complained of the loss 
of time (ib., ii. 268, 11 and 18). 

'Lib., iii. 194, 9; 195, 10; ep., 291, 1336. Outbreak of a pes- 
tilence (ib., i. 142, 14). In ep., 57, Libanius mentions a boy who 
was called home to console his father, because all the other 
children had gone away from home and the father was left alone; 
also in some way to assist his father by his eloquence. Libanius 
rather reluctantly allows the boy to go, but reminds the father 
that it has been stipulated that the boy shall return before the 
end Of the summer. Titianus went home to attend his sister's 
wedding (ib., ep., 374, 376). Calycius interrupted his studies to 
be married (ib., ep., 374, 376, 382, 383). See, in general, Lib., 
or., lvi. (iii. pp. 185-205), and Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 23 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 

We have in the preceding chapters traced the course 
of collegiate instruction in Grecian lands from the time 
when that instruction began, in the centuries before 
Christ, to the time when it was brought to a close, in 
the year 529 A. D., have taken a glance at the profes- 
sor's standing in the community, the manner of his 
appointment, his salary, his privileges and immunities, 
have dropped into the Muses' workshop, as Himerius 
calls it, 1 and observed the professor and his students at 
their daily task, and have also seen the professor in 
those grand moments of triumph when he came before 
the public in the character of interpreter of his own art. 
We are now to look at Greek university life from still 
another point of view — the point of view of the stu- 
dent. Did the ancient student, we should like to know, 
have the same aspirations as his brother in modern 
times; did he, if he happened to be born in a distant 
province, turn with the same longing eyes and wonder- 
ing thoughts to the great university afar off of which he 
had heard so much; did he engage in the same, or 
similar, college practices, and have the same, or similar, 
college customs; and did he, finally, in his old age look 

1 rb rdv Movawv 4pyaffT^piop (pr. } xxii. 7). 

282 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 283 

back with the same fondness and regret to the years 
spent in study and to the friendships then formed ? We 
should think it strange, indeed, if, when there is so much 
in our knowledge of ancient life and thought that is 
only fragmentary, we could answer all these questions 
fully. But we can say something — not, by any means, 
so much as we could wish, but still something that is 
really definite — on every one of them. The most of 
our information bearing on the student life is of the 
fourth century, and here we are fortunate in having, 
first of all, that rich mine of information on many sub- 
jects, Libanius, who is perhaps the greatest of the 
fourth-century sophists, if not of the sophists of all time. 1 
So much of the material contained in the pages of 
Libanius is autobiographical in character that we shall 
find it at once profitable and interesting in this account 
to group as many of the facts as we can about his early 
life; and, so far as may be, we will let him tell the story 
in his own words. 

. Libanius's life was nearly coincident with the rise and 
fall of fourth -century sophistry: sophistry, after its de- 
cline under the ruinous conditions which prevailed in 
the latter half of the third century, once more came into 
prominence under Constantine, at the beginning of the 
fourth century, but again declined toward the end of 
that century; Libanius was born in 314, and he died 
in 394 or 395. He was born at Antioch, that city 

1 Second in point of importance, perhaps, is Eunapius, whose 
Lives of Philosophers and Sophists contains much that is interest- 
ing and curious. Other authors from whom we obtain valuable 
information are Himerius, Themistius, Gregory Nazianzene, and 
so on. 



284 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

where the followers of the new faith were first called 
Christians, a city famed for its beauty and size — it was 
reckoned by the ancients themselves the third city of 
the world and the first of the Roman Empire in the 
East 1 — but also notorious for the free and easy life of 
its inhabitants. In its streets, as in those of Alexandria, 
the East and the West jostled each other, and, while the 
architecture and the culture were Greek, the general 
tone of the life was Eastern. Here the pursuit of 
pleasure was the chief business of life, and, side by side 
with the Greek sophist, the actor, the singer, the ballet- 
dancer, and the circus clown clamored for the popular 
favor. 

Built by Seleucus not long after 300 B. C, and sub- 
sequently enlarged by other members of the Seleucid 
line, Antioch was a typical example of the foundations 
established by the followers of Alexander in many parts 
of the East. It stood in a narrow plain, between the 
Orontes River on the north — at a point about thirteen 
miles inland, where that river, coming from the south, 
turns abruptly to the west, and then flows down to the 
sea — and Mount Casius on the south, and had, at the 
time of Libanius, one broad thoroughfare about four 
miles long, running east and west through the centre of 
the town and flanked on either side by colonnades and 
public buildings, and, crossing this at right angles at 
its middle point, another similar thoroughfare running 
north and south. Narrower streets ran at right angles 

« Lib., i. 471, 16; 673, 7; ii. 254, 15; Jos., Bell. Jud., iii. 2, 4; 
Procop., Bell. Pers. t i. 17, p. 87, 12. It was pre-eminent for its 
size, wealth, beauty, and prosperity. Rome and Alexandria 
alone surpassed it. 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 285 

from each of these thoroughfares, and along the river 
and in the neighborhood of the mountain were many 
handsome residences and beautiful gardens. 

Libanius, who is fond of dwelling on the charms of 
his native town, thus speaks of the hillside, or southern, 
section of the city: 1 "Some of these (i. e. f the narrower 
streets just mentioned) stretch toward the south to the 
foot of the mountain, gradually carrying forward the 
inhabited part as far as is possible, while at the same 
time preserving the symmetry of the city as a whole 
and not raising this section so far above the rest as to 
make it stand apart. . . . The mountain stretches 
along like a shield raised on high for the protection of 
the city, and those who live farthest up on the side have 
nothing to fear such as one might expect from the 
neighborhood of a mountain, but, instead, inducements 
to perfect cheerfulness — streams of running water, 
trees and plants, gardens, breezes, flowers, the songs of 
birds, and the enjoyment, earlier than those below, of 
the delights of spring." 

This was the form of the old city so-called; the new 
city was built on an island in the river, and was con- 
nected with the old city by five strong bridges ; here were 
other thoroughfares and other colonnades, and here 
was the palace, the residence of the rulers of the East. 
"The palace itself," says Libanius, 2 "occupies as much 
of the island as would constitute a fourth part thereof. 
For it touches the centre . . . and extends to the 
outer branch of the river; so that the wall, instead of 
being battlemented, is surmounted by pillars, and, with 

« i. 338, 4. s i. 340, 12. 



286 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

the river flowing beneath and the suburbs on all sides 
rejoicing the sight, makes a picture fit for a king." 

It would be interesting to follow Libanius through 
his description of the beautiful grove, Daphne, which 
lay among the hills, about four and a half miles to the 
south-west of Antioch, and was filled with every sort of 
delight, and then, accompanying him farther, to hear 
him discourse on the hundreds of fountains, both pub- 
lic and private, that were found in every part of the city, 
and on the crowds that thronged the streets at all hours 
of the day and night — "To one stopping and gazing 
at the spectacle for the first time/' he says, 1 "it would 
seem as though there were, outside the city, before each 
gate, a festival, and as though the populace, dividing 
itself by its preferences, were pouring out in accordance 
with some custom to visit these " — and on the many 
kinds of goods that were displayed before all the shops, 
and the illumination by night, which rivalled that of 
the sun by day; but for all this our space is at present 
too limited. We may remark simply, as supplementary 
to what has already been said, that the population of 
Antioch, at the time of which we are speaking, was, 
according to ancient statements, between 150,000 and 
200,000, not including the women, children, and slaves, 
or those dwelling in the various suburbs, and that about 
one-half of the inhabitants are said to have been 
Christians. 2 

» i. 329, 2. 

2 For the last statement, John Chrysostom" is our authority 
(see Benzinger in Pauly's Real-Encyc). Libanius (ep., 1137) 
gives the population as 150,000; John Chrysostom, at the begin- 
ning of the fifth century, as 200,000. The most important an- 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 287 

The family to which Libanius belonged was one of 
the old respected families of Antioch, the members of 
which had for generations been noted for their culture 
and public spirit. The little account that was in those 
days made of Latin in the eastern part of the Empire is 
hinted at in the fact that one of Libanius's great-grand- 
fathers was thought by many to have come from Italy, 
because he wrote a speech in the Latin tongue; 1 this 
was a feat that was then quite beyond the power of most 
men in that part of the world. The family had at one 
time possessed considerable wealth, but, as a result of 
political disturbances in the reign of Diocletian, this 
had been confiscated, and Libanius's parents had at 
first been in straitened circumstances; a meagre part of 
the family fortune had, however, been recovered before 
the fathers death. Libanius was the second of three 
sons; when Libanius was eleven years of age, the father 
died, leaving the three children to the care of the mother 
and her two brothers. We now obtain in Libanius's 
account some pleasing pictures of the family life of that 
time. "My mother," says Libanius, 2 "standing in 
dread of the wickedness of guardians, and, such was 
her natural modesty, shrinking from the possibilities of 
litigation, undertook to bring us children up herself. 

cient description of Antioch is given by Libanius in the oration 
called Antiochicos (i. 275-365). Additional information is con- 
tained in the Byzantine historian Malalas, who also was a 
native of the city. The most important modern authorities are 
K. O. Muller, Antiquitates AntiochencB (1839), and R. Forster, in 
the Jahrbuch d. kaiserl. deutsch. arch. Inst., xii. pp. 103 ff. (1897); 
see also H. C. Butler, in Publ. of the Amer. Arch. Ex. to Syria in 
1899-1900, pt. ii. 

•Lib., i. 3, 9. »i. 5,6. 



288 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

In the main she held to her task with great success, 
though it cost her much labor. But in the matter of 
our education, though she paid out many a sum for 
teachers, she could not bring herself to be severe if one 
of us fell asleep over his books, for she considered it the 
part of a fond mother never to oppose her son in any- 
thing. So that, as a result, we spent the most of the 
year running about the fields instead of at our studies." 
This sort of thing lasted four years, till Libanius 
reached his fifteenth birthday. Then, suddenly, he was 
seized with a passionate desire for learning, which 
carried him as far in the other direction. He sold his 
tame pigeons, stayed away from horse-races and public 
shows, and gave up running about the fields. One of 
the teachers whom he had had in the earlier time was 
"a man," as he says, 1 "from whose lips poured forth 
eloquence in streams." In those days Libanius had 
paid slight attention to this man's instruction, and now 
that he was himself interested in study, the man was 
dead. "So," says Libanius, 2 "I continued to yearn for 
him who was no longer there, and, like those who eat 
barley-bread for want of something better, made use, 
as a last resort, of such teachers as were at hand — 
mere shadows of sophists; but making no progress and 
finding myself in danger of falling into a pit of igno- 
rance by following these blind guides, I finally said 
good-by to them, and refrained thenceforth from exer- 
cising my brain with composing, my tongue with 

1 i. 8, 6. This cannot have been Zenobius, as Forster in his 
edition of Libanius (pp. 84, 289) intimates, for Zenobius did not 
die till many years later. * i. 8, 10. 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 289 

speaking, or my hand with writing. One thing only did 
I do, and that was to memorize passages from the 
ancients. I had as a teacher in this line a man with an 
excellent memory — one quite capable of introducing 
boys to the beauties contained in those old authors. I 
clung to him so closely that not even after school hours 
did I leave his side, but, book in hand, followed him 
through the market-place, and made him recite to me 
whether he would or not. It was evident that he did not 
fancy this sort of thing at the time, though he praised me 
afterward." We here see illustrated in brief the re- 
spective duties of the sophist and the 'grammarian/ 
or teacher of lower grade : the duty of the sophist was to 
teach the brain to compose, the tongue to speak, and 
the hand to write; that of the 'grammarian' was to in- 
terpret the ancient authors. 

Once Libanius met with an accident, the effects of 
which he never ceased to feel to the end of his life. 
"I was one day," he says, 1 "engaged on Aristophanes's 
Acharnians; my teacher was seated and I was standing 
by his side. Suddenly the sun became obscured by 
heavy clouds and it seemed as though day were turned 
to night. There came a loud clap of thunder and at 
the same instant a flash of lightning. My eyes were 
blinded by the flash, and my head was stunned by the 
noise. I did not suppose that I had received any per- 
manent injury, but thought that the confusion in my 
head would pass away soon. After I had gone home, 
however, and while I was at breakfast, I seemed again 
to hear the thunder crash and to see the bolt fly past the 

' i. 9, 13. 



290 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

house. Fright started the sweat out on me, and, jump- 
ing up from the table, I fled to my bed. I thought I 
must say nothing, but must keep the matter secret, for 
fear that, if I should tell the doctors, I might have to 
take some medicine or undergo some treatment that 
would cause me the inconvenience of interrupting my 
studies. By this very course the trouble became firmly 
fixed upon me, whereas, if it had been taken in the 
beginning, it might, I am told, easily have been cured." 
Five years Libanius continued in this path, till he 
was twenty. Then came the first impulse toward the 
sophist's life. "I had thus stored my mind," he says, 1 
"with the writings of the best authors, when I received 
my first impulse toward the sophist's life. One of my 
companions was a Cappadocian named Jasion — a 
backward scholar, but a lover of hard work if there ever 
was one. Day in and day out, one may say, he re- 
hearsed to me the stories he had heard from his elders 
about Athens and the doings there; strange accounts he 
gave me of one Callinicus and Tlepolemus and other 
mighty sophists not a few, and of the contests and the 
victories and the defeats. All this inspired me with a 
longing for the place, but not until later, I thought to 
myself, would I make known my intention of sailing 
thither." We see the young man, in his far-away home, 
his thoughts filled with glowing pictures of the life at 
Athens, forming in his mind the determination some 
day to visit this spot and taste the spring of learning at 
its source. For it was always Athens, "golden Athens," 
that exercised the charm over men's minds, and no 

1 i. 10, 14. 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 291 

matter where else one had studied, one's thoughts 
fondly turned at last to the real home of letters, Athens. 
The Christian orator Basil, after studying at Csesarea 
and Constantinople, "was sent," says Gregory, 1 "by 
God and his own noble and unquenchable thirst for 
knowledge to the real home and seat of learning, 
Athens." That the history and associations of the city 
exercised a powerful influence over the imaginations of 
men at that time, as, indeed, they exercised through all 
antiquity, is evident from many passages in the authors. 2 
At length, after many months, Libanius broached the 
subject that was in his mind, for he could contain him- 
self no longer. " I think," he says, 3 " that, like Odysseus, 
I should have spurned even a marriage of the gods for 
one glimpse of the smoke of Athens." His mother, as 
may be supposed, could not bear to think of his leaving 
home. "Now my mother shed tears and could not 
endure even to hear the subject mentioned. Of my 
two uncles, the elder, thinking that he must uphold my 
mother, bade me desist from striving for the impossi- 
ble; no matter how much I wished to go, he said, he 

1 Or., xliii. 14. 

• "Nymphidianus," says Eunapius (p. 101), "although he had 
never shared in the learning and education that are to be had at 
Athens, was still worthy of the name of sophist." Themistius 
devotes a whole speech to the consideration of the question, why 
it is that young men, in selecting a university, look to the an- 
tiquity and associations of the city rather than to the ability of 
the teachers (331 d-341 a). The reference is, of course, to Athens 
(c/. 336 d). "Athens, the most ancient, the wisest, the most di- 
vinely favored of cities, the common love of men and gods," says 
Libanius (i. 410, 10) One Ecdicius complimented Libanius by 
saying that in sending his sons to him he was sending them to 
Athens (i&., ep., 1529). See pp. 337 ft. 8 i. 11, 23. 



292 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

would not allow it. But then came the Olympic games 
instituted by my younger uncle, and after that, when 
I was at last becoming reconciled to the inevitable, 
Fortune sent to the city, or rather to the whole land, the 
affliction of Panolbius's death. (Panolbius was the 
name of my elder uncle.) My mother's tears no longer 
availed to the same purpose with Phasganius, for he 
was not a man to yield to idle grief. So he persuaded 
her to bear the pain, which, he said, would not be for 
long and promised great reward, and then opened wide 
the door for my departure." ■ 

Libanius was at this time twenty-two years of age. 2 
This was above the average age of university students, 
although there were, without doubt, many students at 
Athens as old as that, or even older. From fifteen to 
twenty may have been the usual age; the Emperor 
Julian, however, when a student at Athens, was twenty- 
four, Basil was twenty-five, and Gregory Nazianzene 
was, when he left the city, nearly thirty. Probably, as 
at the present day in a large university centre, all 
periods of youth and early manhood were well repre- 
sented in the crowds of students that flocked to Athens 
in the fourth century of our era. At Rome students were 
forbidden by an edict of 370 to stay in the city for pur- 

1 i. 11, 24. 

2 At least two years elapsed between the time when he first 
conceived the idea of going to Athens and the time when he 
finally set out, for the Olympic games just mentioned (c/. iii. 110) 
took place in the year 336. He was at Athens during his twenty- 
fifth year (i. 20, 3), and it is probable that the four years of his 
university study extended from his twenty-second to his twenty- 
sixth year, that is, from 336 or 337 to 340 or 341 (see Sievers, 
Ltiben des Lib., p. 43, n. 2). 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 293 

poses of study after the age of twenty, and at Berytus 
the limit was fixed for law students at twenty-five. In 
other places all ages were again probably represented. 
Libanius apparently studied under a sophist at Antioch 
before he was fifteen, and he refers to a student of his 
own who, when he began to study, was over twenty. 1 
Libanius had at first evidently had it in mind to go to 

1 See Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 20. The sophist Adrian was 
eighteen when he went to study at Athens (Philos., 585). Euna- 
pius was sixteen (Eunap., p. 74). For Rome, see Dig., xxvii. 2, 3, 
5; Cod. Th., xiv. 9, 1. For Berytus, Cod. Jus., x. 50, 1 and 2. 
The reason for the setting of a limit to the period of study was to 
prevent students from evading their public duties. For Libanius, 
see p. 288 (cf. ib., i. 526, 9, of Julian). For Libanius's pupil, ib. t 
ep., 605. Lucian speaks of a boy of eighteen who had made 
good progress in his philosophy (Philops., 14). For the age of 
fifteen or under, see Orelli, Inscr., No. 2432: studioso eloqnentice, 
vixit annis xv; Kaibel, Ep. Gr., 229: €tij 8' irl irtvre \6yoiaiv 
fly 'E^&rwi <rxo\d<ras el/coo-frr}* %davov and compare Philos., 594: 
'ApurToicXiovs ^v y&p jJKovo-e 7reus €Tt, and ib., 598: d/cpooT7jj 81 
'Hpi65ov fikv iv iraurlv, 'ApicrrokXiovs 5£ iv (Meipaidois yep6/xevos (cf. ib., 
568). Libanius had a pupil of fifteen (Lib., ii. 267, 9). Hip- 
podromus had one of twenty-two (Philos., 617). Libanius urges a 
former pupil, who has gone home to be married, to return to 
his studies and bring his wife with him (Lib., ep., 374, 376, 
382, 383). Another of his pupils was a married man (ib., ep., 
1535, 1536, 1537; cf. Luc, Symp., 32), and still another was a 
member of the council at Antioch (ib., ep., ii. 222, 16). Even 
advocates sometimes attended his course (ib., ep., 203). Liba- 
nius, when teaching at Constantinople, attended the lectures of 
Didymus (ib., ep., 321), and Eunapius studied under Chrysanthius 
while he was himself teaching rhetoric (Eunap., p. 114). One 
of Libanius's fellow-students at Athens was of the same age as 
Libanius (Lib., i. 21, 12). A member of the Senate at Constanti- 
nople studied under Themistius (ib., ep., 84, 1510 a). In general, 
Themistius's students probably averaged somewhat older than 
those of the sophists (Themis., 288 c). Soranus, in the second 
century, says (Ars obs., 92) that from fourteen to twenty-one 
the boy studied mathematics and philosophy. See, further, 
Rohde, in Rhein. Mus., 40, pp. 73, 74. 



294 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Athens by sea, but when he departed he went over- 
land to Constantinople. Perhaps the lateness of the 
season determined him to take this course. He de- 
parted with mingled joy and regret. "So I drove forth, 
and only then did I realize how bitter a thing it is to 
leave behind those who are dear to us. Thus, it was 
with tears and lamentations that I was carried on my 
way, and often did I turn my eyes back, longing to catch 
a glimpse of the city walls. As far as Tyana, tears; 
from there onward, a fever, but ever tears. Two long- 
ings fought within me, but shame, casting in its weight, 
turned the scale, and I went on, perforce, sick as I was. 
My sickness increasing with the journeying, I was little 
better than dead when I at length crossed the Bosporus; 
and my mules were in much the same condition." ■ It 
took about a week in those days, travel as fast as one 
could, to go from Antioch to Constantinople by land; 2 
in Libanius's case the time must have been very much 
longer. 

Libanius had counted on being forwarded from Con- 
stantinople to Athens by Imperial Post, but the man — 
a friend of the family, apparently — through whose in- 
fluence he had hoped to secure this privilege, had fallen 
from favor, and so Libanius was obliged to turn to the 

1 i. 12, 13 

'When Caesarius drove from Antioch to Constantinople after 
the uprising at Antioch, and allowed himself no time for food or 
sleep, it took him until noon of the sixth day to reach his destina- 
tion (Lib., i. 684, 14 ff.). The road passed through Tarsus, Ancyra, 
Nicsea, and Nicomedia, and the distance was seven hundred and 
ninety-two English miles. Libanius travelled in a wagon drawn 
by mules. See Palestine Pilgrims' Texts, 5, Itinerary from Bor- 
deaux to Jerusalem. 



THE BOYHOOD OF A SOPHIST 295 

sea to find a means of reaching his destination. Few 
captains were venturing out at that time of the year, 
but Libanius finally found one who for a consideration 
was willing to undertake the voyage. "So," he says, 1 
"I embarked, and, being favored by the powers of the 
deep, was carried on my way in high spirits. Perinthus 
and Rhceteum and Sigeum, as we sailed along, and the 
city of King Priam of many woes, I looked upon from 
the deck; then across the iEgean we scudded under as 
fair a breeze as favored Nestor. So that, as it proved, 
my friend's inability to provide conveyance by Post was 
a gain to me." Thus did Libanius approach the land 
of enchantment. 

1 i. 13, 7. 



CHAPTER XIV 

STUDENT DAYS 

At the time when Libanius landed at the port of 
Athens, the rivalry among the different sophists was 
intense, and the spirit which animated the sophists 
themselves was reflected in the conduct of their stu- 
dents. Attached to each sophist was a sort of corps, or 
incorporated student body, composed of those students 
who, having sworn allegiance to the sophist's cause, at- 
tended his lectures as his regularly enrolled pupils. 
Each of these corps (called commonly a x°P^Y had 
its own student leader (/copvcjxiios, irpoardT^, #0/37770?, 

1 E. g. y Lib., i. 16, 1. Also called Qparpla (Greg. Naz., Poem, de se 
ipso, ii. 1, 215); <rvp.p.opla (Lib., ep., 139). Other terms for a soph- 
ist's corps, or class, were diarpipJi (Eunap., p. 75); &y£Kii (Lib., i. 
258, 16); iroifjLvv (Choric, p. 4); irol^op (Lib., i. 119, 15). The 
sophist was the 'shepherd' of his flock (irot/x^v, ib., i. 19, 14); also 
the ' leader ' (yyentip, ib., i. 16, 5), and the ' ruler ' (Apxwv, ib., i. 15, 
1); see, further, ib., ii. 429, 3; ep., 454. The students were called 
nadi)Tal, 'learners,' 'disciples' (ib., iii. 255, 17); 6p.i\r)TaL, 'associ- 
ates' (Philos., 523); aKpoaral, 'auditors' (ib., 494); yvdpip.01, 'ac- 
quaintances' (ib., 522); <rracriwTat, 'partisans' (ib., 536); (poiTrjral, 
<t>oiTG>vTes, 'frequenters' (Lib., ep., 187; i. 178, 13); irwXot, 'colts' 
(ib., ep., 154); 8avp.a£6pievoi, 'admirers' (Syn., Dion, 13); irir^Setoi, 
'friends' (Themis., 291 a); TrXtjaid^ovret, 'associates' (Jul., ep., 42); 
iraTpoi, 'companions' (Lib., ep., 160); x°P eVTa ^, 'corpsmen' (ib., 
ep., 285); diaawrai, 'classmen' (Procop., ep., 108); 6p4p.fw.ra, 'chil- 
dren' (Lib., ep., 343); <rwov<jia<jTa.l, 'associates' (ib., ep., 521); 
viot, 'young men' (ib., i. 11, 18). Newcomers were ve-fjXvSes 
(Himer., or., xv. title). 

296 



STUDENT DAYS 297 

'A/cpcopiTTjs), 1 and expected of its members mutual co- 
operation in upholding and promoting the interest of its 
teacher. When a young man went for the first time to 
Athens to begin his studies at the university there, he 
probably, in most cases, if allowed to enter the city un- 
molested, betook himself to a sophist of his own national- 
ity or to one of prominence and enrolled himself forthwith 
as a pupil under his instruction. 2 Thus, Eunapius men- 

1 Lib., ep., 755, 804, 1058; i. 16, 15; Phot., Bibl, cod. 80, p. 60; 
Themis., 294 a. For the meaning of ' AKpufiLrris, see Sievers, Leben 
dea.Lib., p. 32, n. 153. rb K€<pd\aiov t&v xopcvrQv (Lib., ep., 1518). 
See the description of a x°/^s, Themis., 293 c-294 a. For Kopv<paios 
rod x°P°v in another sense, see p. 270. 

'Other reasons at times influenced the student: a boy joined 
Libanius's class because he knew that his uncle was a friend of 
Libanius (Lib., ep., 22). Sometimes the young student was 
brought to the sophist by his father (ib.> ii. 342, 10; iii. 200, 15; 
ep., 940), or his mother (ib., ep., 288), or some other relative (ib., 
ep., 87, 640), or he came recommended by letter (ib., ep., 
940), and on occasion the sophist seems to have given the 
boy an examination before admitting him to the class (ib., ep., 
358, 460, 1048; cf. 187, 1203). In view, however, of the compe- 
tition that existed among the sophists, it is likely that the 
examination was often waived. Schlosser (Univ., Stud. u. Prof, 
d. Griech., p. 232) says that students were won for this or that 
sophist before leaving home, and that they even sometimes 
engaged as early as that to become leaders of a corps. There is 
no authority for the last statement, and the fact is extremely 
unlikely. It is doubtful if they were, except possibly in rare 
cases, even sworn to any particular sophist before leaving home. 
Libanius had apparently selected his teacher before arriving at 
Athens, but purely in a voluntary way. Eunapius and his com- 
panions were taken to Proseresius, because the skipper of the 
phip in which they were brought to Athens was a friend of 
^oseresius. At the time of the great contest for the chief chair 
of rhetoric at Athens, the different nations sent their students, 
according to the respective nationalities of the teachers, to 
Epiphanius, Diophantus, and Proseresius; but it does not appear 
that any canvassing or press-gang work was done in the provinces. 
The reader who has some acquaintance with the customs pre- 



298 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

tions it l as a fact worthy of notice that Libanius, when 
he reached Athens, did not join the school of the sophist 
Epiphanius, who was a Syrian and had a wide reputa- 
tion, nor that of the far-famed Proseresius, "fearing 
that he should be swamped in the crowd of students and 
the great reputation of the teachers"; but that, instead, 
he attached himself to a third sophist — one Diophantus 
of Arabia. Again, as we may remember, at the time 
when these three distinguished sophists, Epiphanius of 
Syria, Diophantus of Arabia, and Proseresius of Ar- 
menia, were all competing for the official chair of 
sophistry at Athens, the Roman world in the East was 
divided in its sympathies among these three; the Orient 
held to Epiphanius, Arabia supported Diophantus, 
while nearly the whole of Asia Minor, as well as Egypt 

vailing among the students at the German universities at the 
present day will be reminded, in reading of the Greek xopol, of 
the German Corps. It is probable that at first the Greek x°P°L 
were, as were the German Corps, based on nationality. This is 
suggested by the use of such terms as 'the Greeks' (ol "EXX^es, 
Philos., 571), 'the Greek crowd' (rb 'E\\7}pik6i>, ib., 587), 'the 
Armenians' (ol 'Ap/xtvioi, Greg. Naz., or., xliii. 17), 'the Laco- 
nians' (Eunap., p. 73). For long the majority of the students 
of any one sophist may have been of the sophist's own nationality, 
but other students were from the first doubtless welcomed, and 
even sought. In the second half of the fourth century nationality 
was probably, in ordinary times, a lesser bond of union. The 
captain of Julian's Spartan band was an Athenian (Eunap., p. 
70). Himerius at Athens had students from a variety of coun- 
tries, as did Libanius at Antioch. It would seem to have been 
the case at one time in Antioch that teachers did not have the 
liberty of rejecting students who were brought to them (Lib., i. 
213, 9: oiK otfarjs rots SiSaovcdXots ii-ovvlas, oh (HoijXoivto, kXcIciv tAj 
(tipai), though perhaps we must not press this statement too far. 
Reference may also be made, in connection with the x°P°*> to 
the Nations which formerly existed at European universities. 

« P. 96. 



STUDENT DAYS 299 

and the regions toward Libya, sent their pupils to 
Proseresius. Not always, however, or perhaps in the 
majority of cases, was the young man allowed to reach 
his journey's end without interference. The various 
student corps, performing the part of press-gangs in 
the service of their respective teachers, not only paraded 
the streets of Athens, but beset every avenue of ap- 
proach, for the purpose of obtaining recruits for their 
ranks. Interesting descriptions of this press-gang ser- 
vice and of the initiatory rites practised upon the would- 
be Freshman in ancient times are given by the fourth- 
century Gregory Nazianzene in his Life of Basil and by 
Photius in a summary from the work of the historian 
Olympiodorus of the early part of the fifth century. 
Though of different periods, the two accounts supple- 
ment each other. 

The most of the young men at Athens [says Gregory J j 
— the more foolish among them — are sophist-mad ; being 
not only the base-born and the insignificant, but even such 
as are of good family and prominent station; for they are 
a mixed crowd, and young, and not easily restrainable in 
their impulses. They do just such things as we see done 
at horse-races by lovers of horses and public shows. These 
jump and shout, throw dust into the air, play the charioteer 
from their seats, lash the air for a horse with the finger as 
a whip, and make believe to shift their horses from one 
chariot to another, though really they can do none of 
those things which they pretend to do. With the greatest 
ease they exchange drivers, horses, stalls, and managers. 
And who are they that act thus ? The poor often and the 
needy, who perhaps have not enough for their own sup- 

1 Or., xliii. 15. 



300 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

port for a single day. Exactly similar are the actions of 
the young men with reference to their teachers and the 
rival sophists, in their endeavors to increase their own 
numbers and to bring by their efforts added prosperity to 
their professors. The whole proceeding is, indeed, quite 
astonishing and absurd. Towns, roads, harbors, mountain- 
tops, plains, and frontier lines — in fact, every inch of 
Attic, and, indeed, of Grecian, soil is preoccupied, and 
even the inhabitants are, for the most part, taken posses- 
sion of, for they, too, are divided in their sympathies. 
When, now, a young man arrives and becomes a captive 
(for this always happens, either with or without his con- 
sent, such being the Attic custom, a form of sport not un- 
mingled with seriousness), he is first entertained at the 
house of one of his captors, or of one of his friends or rela- 
tives or fellow-countrymen, or, it may be, of one of those 
who, adepts in the sophistic practices and clever at securing 
gain for their teachers, are for that reason greatly honored 
by the latter (for it is as good as money to these to have 
enthusiastic supporters); then he is made the object of 
jest and banter by all who wish to take part in the sport. 
The purpose of the last-mentioned proceeding is, I think, 
to humble the conceit of the new student and to bring him 
at once under the authority of the corps. The bantering 
is either rough and insulting, or it is moderate in tone, 
according as the object thereof is himself boorish or 
refined. To the inexperienced the proceeding looks most 
frightful and cruel, but, when one knows beforehand what 
is to occur, it is very pleasant and humane; for the dem- 
onstration made by these threateners is greater than the 
performance. After the bantering, the victim is marched 
in procession through the market-place to the public 
bath. The procession is made up as follows: Those who 
form the escort arrange themselves in a double line, 
two by two, with a space after each couple, and so 
conduct the youth to the bath. When they come near, 



STUDENT DAYS 301 

they begin to jump, and to shout at the top of their 
voices, as if possessed, those in front calling to those 
behind not to advance, but to halt, as the bath cannot be 
entered; and at the same time they batter the door and 
terrify the young man with the noise. At length they 
allow him to enter and give him his freedom, putting him, 
now that the ordeal of the bath is over, on an equal footing 
with themselves and receiving him as one of their number. 
This, indeed, is the most pleasant feature of the initiation, 
that the deliverance from the ordeal is speedy and the 
dispersal immediate. 

In the summary of Olympiodorus we come upon a 
new feature — the student's gown. We are familiar 
with the coarse gown worn, more or less regularly, by 
philosophers from the time of Socrates, as a badge of 
humility and studiousness; this was of a dark color, 
but the sophist's gown, we are told, was red or purple. 1 
We recollect that, when Hippodromus dropped into 

1 Schol. in Greg. Naz., Migne, p. 906: rplfiuves 5e TrepijSXiJ/iard' riva 
tGiv prjrdpcov fikv ipvdpol re /ecu (powiKol, <f>aiol 8£ tG>v <pt\off6<pb)V 
Trapd.urip.ov 5e tovto t)v aureus Kad' kKdffry\v (popovp.evov. Cf. Themis. 
246 d, and Cod. Th., xiii. 3, 7, and see Diels, Doxographi Greed, p 
254; also Agathias, ii. 29, p. 68 c, and Rohde, Gr. Rom., p. 331 
Philosophers are included under the ' men in white ' in the Syne- 
sius passage, ep., 153 («al ydp tCjv 4v Xei/xots %vioi rpi^uffi, icai t&v 
iv <paioi$, %<pa.ffdv p.e Trapa.pop.eiv et's <pikoffo(plav), while the 'men in black' 
are the monks and clergy. (Cf. Themis., or., xxi, xxiii, xxvi, 
from which it is evident that Themistius was also criticised by 
philosophers, as well as by sophists, for holding displays of his 
eloquence.) To be sure, it is surprising to learn that philoso- 
phers were clad in white, but perhaps by this time the philoso- 
phers had begun to imitate the style of dress of the sophists. 
The sophists also are ridiculed for their white flowery dress (Luc, 
Rhet. prose, 15). See Epictet., iii. 23, 35: kop4>§ <rro\t(p r) 
Tpifiwvaplq}, of a philosopher's dress. Philosophers were some- 
times called ffo<pi.ffTai by way of reproach (see Luc, Jup. trag., 
14, 19, 30; also Schmid, Gr. Renais., p. 37, n. 11). 



302 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Megistias the sophist's school-room during school- 
hours, 1 Megistias had on the speaker's gown, and that 
Hippodromus thought it necessary to don this before 
he could speak. The gown is elsewhere mentioned as 
the distinctive garb of those engaged in academic study 
or teaching, 2 but in this passage we shall find that at 
Athens, in the early part of the fifth century, its use, 
in the case of students, was subject to certain fixed 
regulations. 

Olympiodorus [says Photius a ] further says that he re- 
paired to Athens, and that through his efforts and atten- 
tion Leontius was elevated to the chair of sophistry, though 
he in no way desired that honor. He also speaks of the 
student's gown, saying that at Athens no one, above all no 
stranger, was allowed to assume this unless he had been 
granted permission by vote of the sophists and had had his 
worth confirmed by the rites performed in accordance with 
the scholastic regulations. These rites were as follows: 
First, the newcomers, both large and small, were conducted 
to the public bath, and, included among these, were also 
those who, having arrived at the proper age, were ready 
to assume the gown, and whom the conducting students 
had thrust into the middle of the line. Then some ran 
before and tried to prevent the advance, while others re- 
sisted from behind and pushed in the opposite direction; 
and all those who tried to prevent the advance shouted 
" Stop! Stop! No bathing here!" Finally those who were 
pushing to get the student in were considered to have pre- 
vailed, and, after much contention over the aforesaid cus- 

1 See p. 258. See also Synesius, Dion, 11, of the sophist on the 
day of declamation: he appears iffdijn tcai o-xtfiutTi aofiapoh. 

2 See Greg. Naz., or., xxxvi. 12; Lib., i. 411, 9; ii. 432, 5; iii. 
438, 23; ep., 389, 471, 713, 937. The student was said Xanp&veiv 
rbv Tplfiuva (Greg. Naz., or., xliii. 17). Both professors and stu- 
dents wore the gown. 8 Bibl., cod. 80, p. 60. 






STUDENT DAYS 303 

tomary words, he was at length brought into the warm apart- 
ment and there given a bath. Then, after he had dressed, 
he received the privilege of the gown, and immediately 
departed clad therein and escorted by an honorable and 
distinguished procession; having previously laid out a con- 
siderable sum in honor of the leaders of the corps, the so- 
called Acromites. 1 

How did Libanius fare when he landed in the midst 
of this life ? "So," he says, 2 " touching at Gersestus, we 
passed on and came to anchor at last in one of the 
harbors of Athens, where I lay over night. On the 

1 Not all students, it is evident from this account, were allowed, 
immediately after their arrival at Athens and initiation at the 
hands of the older students whose captives they became, to wear 
the gown. While, according to Olympiodorus, every new arrival, 
young or old, was put through the initiatory rites, only such 
students as were of a suitable age and had further received the 
approval of the sophists themselves, were granted this privilege. 
(So, in Lib., ep., 763, 937, the gown is spoken of as the pro- 
spective reward of a proficient student.) What was the fate of the 
unsuccessful candidates — whether they were later admitted to 
the ranks of the gownsmen, and whether, if so, they were required 
to undergo a second initiation, as also in what relation they 
stood to their more fortunate fellow-students — is not clear. If 
the interpretation is correct which makes the second of the 
qualifications mentioned above (vnv tCjv <ro<pi(rTCjvi)yvJ>fXT) iirtrpcTre) 
imply united action on the part of the sophists, the fact is note- 
worthy, and serves to supplement what we know of united 
action among the professors at Antioch in the time of Libanius 
(see pp. 270 //., 326). A further suggestion of combined action — 
this time on the part of the different student-corps — may be 
contained in the final words of Olympiodorus given above (els 
tovs tG>v $ict77n/3u)j/ irpotTTdras tous \eyop.4vovs 'A^pw^rai). Bern- 
hardy (Gr. Lit., p. 710) sees a reference in Phot., Bibl., cod. 
242, p. 352 a, 16: \6yovs . . . 4ire8eiKv6fjL7)v irpdrepov, rbv iwl 
{>7)TopiKXJ TpL(3<vua TrepidtpLevos, iotrre ty koX rplficav f>r]ToptK6s, a>$ zeal 
0i\6ao0o5, to a sort of Doctorate. Sometimes the hazing seems 
to have consisted of an intellectual browbeating, as when the 
band of Armenians attempted to argue Basil down (Greg. Naz., 
or., xliii. 17). » i. 13, 13. 



304 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

next evening I was in the city and in hands I little liked; 
and on the following night, in still other hands, as little 
to my liking as the former. But of him whom I had 
come to see and hear, not a glimpse was to be had, for 
I was confined in a cell not much larger than a wine- 
jar; such were the tricks they played on the new arrivals 
as they came. We shouted, my sophist and I, he from 
one room and I from another, deprived of each other's 
presence; but my gaolers paid no attention to our cries. 
Like another Aristodemus, I was guarded, Syrian though 
I was, until I took the oath; but after I had sworn 
allegiance to the party whose captive I was, the door 
of my cell was opened, and from that time forth I 
attended the lectures of all three sophists: those of the 
one, without delay and as a regularly enrolled pupil, 
those of the other two, according to the regulation in 
force governing attendance at lectures." l 

1 i. 14, 4: 7}Kpo(i>fx.r]VTOv fj£v evdds iv rdl-ei fiadrjrov, toip Svoiv bk KCLTk 
vbfMv 8r] rbv tQv ividel^euv . The regulation here referred to 
may have been similar to that in force at Antioch, whereby, 
when any one of the sophists held a display, the students of all 
the other sophists in the city were released from work on that 
day and allowed to attend the lecture (see p. 280). Cf. Philos., 
578, where a student of one sophist seems to have had the oppor- 
tunity of attending the aKpodaeis of another (see also ib. f 617). 
At Antioch students seem at times to have been attached to two 
sophists at once (Lib., ep., 474, 498; iii. 262, 2 ff.). Of course, it 
was not unusual for a student to attend the lectures of two or 
more sophists at different periods of his course. With iv rc£|et 
fiadrjTov, cf. Lib., i. 527, 3: ^ p.T)v kyhv /n^re yevtaOcu firjTe KXrjdijvai. 
<pOLTT]T7]v ii.y\r' 1 els rbv KardXoyop iyypaiprfvai t&v e/xCov bp.Ckr)TG)v, and, 
for the oath, see ib., ep., 407. The sophist by whom Libanius 
was impressed was Diophantus (Eunap., p. 96; Suidas, s. v. 
Aifi&vios). The sophist whom he went to hear is supposed to 
have been Epiphanius, and the third sophist referred to, Proae- 
resius. The reference to the last two, however, is rather in- 



STUDENT DAYS 305 

It would seem, from this account, that Libanius 
escaped the usual initiatory rites as described by 
Gregory and Olympiodorus; but such was not the case: 
in one of his letters * he refers, in a reminiscent vein, as 
to a part of his own experience, to the bath which fol- 
lowed his arrival, and — a new feature, not mentioned 
by either Gregory or Olympiodorus — to the 'spread* 
which came after, and the conversation that there took 
place. Probably a 'spread/ provided at the expense 
of the initiate, was the last act in the drama of initia- 
tion, and for this the money which, according to Olym- 
piodorus, was laid out in honor of the Acromites may 
have served. 2 

It did sometimes happen, but only rarely, that the 
rigor of the process here described was, as a mark of 
special recognition, relaxed in favor of a new pupil. 
Thus, Basil of Csesarea, the great Christian orator, was, 
thanks to the efforts of his friend Gregory, already well 
known when he arrived at Athens at the age of twenty- 
five or thereabouts, and in his case the initiatory rites 
were omitted, out of respect for his reputation and 
dignity. 3 Eunapius was sick when he arrived, and by 

definite, and if it were not for the difficulty of making toTv SvoTv 
8t include tov fitv in the passage given above, we should be in- 
clined to believe that two sophists only are referred to here; 
especially as two only are mentioned in the further account of 
Libanius (i. 15-19). Libanius seems to have heard also the 
lectures of the philosophers Priscus (Lib., ep., 866) and Maximus 
(ib., ep., 685) while at Athens. Gellius speaks of attending 
:3veral teachers at one time (xviii. 2, 2). l 1071. 

* See Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 32, n. 153. 

• Greg. Naz., or., xliii. 16. Libanius once wrote to the proconsul 
of Greece requesting him to protect from hazing a student who 
was about to go to Athens (ep., 1347). 



306 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

special request of Proseresius, the sophist to whom he 
attached himself, the rites were in his case also only in 
part carried out. Eunapius's own account of this event 
is worth perusal, both for its own sake and because it 
well supplements what has already been said : * 

He (i. e. f Eunapius, the author) arrived at the Peirseus 
about the first watch, suffering from a violent fever, where- 
with he had been attacked on the voyage; a number of 
others, his relatives, accompanied him, and the skipper, 
notwithstanding the hour, set out immediately for Athens, 
before any of the usual proceedings had taken place — 
for the vessel hailed from Athens, and crowds of students, 
fanatically bent on promoting the interests of their re- 
spective schools, were always lying in wait near the 
landing-places. The others walked, but the writer, being 
unable to walk, was carried to the city in the arms of his 
companions, who relieved one another at supporting him. 
It was now midnight, at the time of the year when the 
sun, verging toward the south, makes the nights longer; 
in fact, it had already entered Libra, and the autumn 
equinox was at hand. The skipper had an ancient bond 
of friendship and hospitality with Proaeresius, and so, 
knocking at his door, he introduced us all into his house; 
— so many were we that, when later several battles took 
place over a youth or two, we who came that night made 
by ourselves a complete sophist's school. Some of these 
had physical strength, some had great wealth, while there 
were others who had neither strength nor wealth; the 
writer was in a sorry plight, for his sole possession was a 
fairly complete knowledge of the works of the ancients, 
which he had at his tongue's end. At once there was 
rejoicing throughout the house, and a running about of 
men and women, and some laughed, and some threw jokes 

i P. 74. 



STUDENT DAYS 307 

at us. Notwithstanding the hour, Proaeresius sent for 
some of his kinsmen and bade them take the newcomers 
under their charge. . . . These, taking possession of the 
newcomers, conducted them into the neighboring streets 
and about the baths, making a general display of them, 
while the boys treated them to ridicule and laughter. And 
so the others, when they had received the bath, were once 
and for all freed from their troubles, but the writer, the 
force of his sickness increasing, lay near to death. Neither 
Proseresius nor Athens did he see, and the things that he 
had desired he seemed but to have dreamt. . . . [After 
his life had been almost despaired of, Eunapius was at 
length taken in hand by one iEschines, a physician whose 
reputation was not of the best, and was by him unex- 
pectedly and quickly restored to health.] The most divine 
Proaeresius, who, though he had never seen the writer, 
had yet, when he heard of his sickness, grieved for him, did 
now, when he learned of his unexpected and joyful re- 
covery, call to his side the strongest and most valiant- 
hearted of his students — those whose feats of strength 
were most loudly applauded — and say to them: "I have 
sorrowed for this youth whose life has now been saved, 
though I have never seen him; still I sorrowed for him 
when he lay at the point of death. If you wish, therefore, 
to do me a favor, you will give this young man his purifica- 
tion at the public bath, but you will spare him all ridicule 
and jesting, and deal easily with him as though he were my 
own son." And this was what took place. 

Eunapius was at that time sixteen years of age, and 
Proaeresius eighty-seven. 

We notice with pleasure in this passage the tender 
consideration which Proaeresius showed for the sick 
Eunapius. The attitude of the sophist toward the 
student was in general a parental one, and indeed he is 



308 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

often called the father of his students. 1 He not un- 
frequently kept a careful watch over their daily life, 
accompanied them on their walks, visited them when 
they were sick, and in other ways showed his interest 
in their welfare. 2 The term ' father/ however, as 
used in this connection, referred quite as much to an 
intellectual relationship as to any actual parental care 
exercised by the sophist toward the student. The 
sophist was the intellectual parent of the student; it 
was through him that the student came into a new life. 
This relationship formed a bond between the two that 
was hardly less sacred than that existing between the 
real father and the son, 3 and we find that the feeling of 
the sophist toward the student was as a rule recipro- 
cated. 

We observed in a previous chapter the admiration 
and respect with which Eunapius wrote of the person- 
ality of the aged Proseresius — that patriarchal figure 
which he recalled out of the days of his boyhood. The 
same admiration and respect breathes through his de- 
scription of the sophist Julian's house, which he saw 

1 E. g., Themis., 20 b; Choric, p. 21; Lib., ep., 1452. Libanius 
calls one of his former pupils his son, and says that he stood to 
the boy as a father (ep., 137). The students are called the chil- 
dren of the sophist (id., iii. 444, 5; Eunap., p. 70). C/. Quint., 
Inst, or., ii. 2, 4; ii. 9. 

s Eunap., p. 113; Lib., ii. 311, 12. Libanius sometimes de- 
fended his students from the attacks of the police (ib. ). He writes 
on one occasion to the uncle of one of his pupils, telling him that 
he does not allow his nephew enough money; if the uncle were 
poor, says Libanius, and could not afford the money, he (Libanius) 
should himself consider it his duty to see that the boy did not 
want (ep., 22). 

3 Cf. Philos., 536: iraripa kclXQu airbv rijs iavrov yXdrrw ib., 
617: rots ifxavrov airXdyxfois (of a pupil). 



STUDENT DAYS 309 

when at Athens. This house was evidently sacred in his 
eyes. "When at Athens," he says, 1 "the writer saw 
Julian's house. It was small and simply furnished, but 
breathed the air of Hermes and the Muses; in no respect 
did it differ from a holy shrine. Julian had bequeathed 
it to Proseresius. There were busts in it of some of 
Julian's friends — those whom the sophist most ad- 
mired — and a theatre of polished marble, built in 
imitation of the public theatres, but smaller and such 
as befitted a private house." Philostratus says 2 that 
the sophist Adrian engaged with his students in all their 
pastimes quite like one of them, so that he was looked 
upon as an agreeable and kind-hearted father. "Some 
of them I have seen," continues Philostratus, "when 
anything has recalled the man to their mind, shed tears, 
and fondly imitate his voice, his walk, and the graceful 
manner he had of wearing his cloak." On one occa- 
sion, when Adrian was made the object of a bitter 
attack by a certain pettifogging rhetorician, but himself 
paid no attention to the abuse that was heaped upon 
him, his students, taking up their professor's cause, 
ordered their servants to waylay the rhetorician and 
give him a sound thrashing. This they did, and about 
a month later the man died, though the cause of his 
death was not evident. Adrian, however, was arraigned, 
and then his students appeared in court, and with tears 
and words of explanation sued for his release. 3 So, 
when Heracleides was adjudged guilty of cutting down 
some cedar- trees, the wood of which was sacred, and 
was mulcted by the court of a sum nearly equal to the 
i P. 68. * P. 587. • Philos., 588. 



310 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

whole of his fortune, his students accompanied him 
from the court-house, consoling and supporting him, 
and one said, "Well, Heracleides, no one can take away 
your eloquence or the glory that has brought you." 1 

Libanius was now duly matriculated at the University 
of Athens and ready to begin his studies there. How 
did he improve his time ? The opinion which he formed 
of his lecturers was not an exalted one. "Now the 
applause," he says, 2 "was great, being designed to mis- 
lead those who were tasting this spring of learning for 
the first time, but I gradually began to realize that it 
was nothing very wonderful that I had come to hear, 
for the charge of these boys had been seized by men 
who did not themselves differ much from boys. It was 
held an unpardonable offence on my part toward 
Athens that I did not express admiration for the pro- 
fessors, and it was with difficulty that I appeased the 
indignation of the students by telling them that I ad- 
mired in silence and that I was prevented from shouting 

1 Philoa., 614. Libanius says that he is sure that his students 
would attack and pommel his enemies, without waiting for a 
case at law, if they knew who his enemies were (ii. 308, 8). 
This was their duty (cf. ib., ii. 266, 1 ff.). Compare the love of 
Severus, Libanius's former pupil, for his master in after years 
(ib., iii. 231, 1 ff. ), and the regard of Libanius for the memory of his 
teacher Zenobius (ib., ep., 100, 101, 118, 119). See also ib., i. 
203, 4. Sometimes a student gave financial aid to his teacher 
(ib., ep., 232), and one of Libanius's former pupils sent to the 
professor a x iT ^ v made by his wife (ib., ep., 829). Nicknames 
were common in antiquity, and doubtless the ancient student 
often made use of them in connection with his teacher. One 
particularly trenchant Peripatetic (Luc, Symp., 6) was called by 
his students 'Brand' (£l<t>os) and 'Cleaver' (icoirk). The sophist 
Secundus was called 'Peggy ' (iirlovpos), because his father was a 
carpenter (Philos., 544). a i. 14, 6. 



STUDENT DAYS 311 

by my ill health." And yet Diophantus, the sophist to 
whom Libanius attached himself, was one of the most 
famous sophists in the city; it was both in Libanius's 
own nature, however, and in the spirit of the times to 
carp at rival eminence. 1 As it was, Libanius devoted 
himself to the study of the ancients, and paid not much 
attention to his lectures. In after times he professed 
to have benefited by this proceeding. "In the very 
matter of my style," he says, addressing an Antioch 
audience, 2 "I should have become the imitator of the 
sophist under whom I was studying — my love for the 
man would have brought that about — and I should 
then have followed in the footsteps of men whom you 
yourselves know only too well and whom it is better 
that I should not mention. Imagine, if, instead of the 
masters of style whose forms you now recognize in my 
speeches, my sentences were to suggest to you some 
poor starveling rhetorician." We may compare with 
this account Eunapius's description of Libanius's 
method of study : 3 "Having been impressed by Dio- 
phantus^ pupils, he attached himself to Diophantus; 
and, as those who became well acquainted with the 
man said, he, understanding the purport of what had 
been done, very rarely presented himself at the lectures 
and the meetings of the class, and afforded no trouble 
to the teacher, but confined himself to the practice of 
declamations, and forced himself into conformity with 
the ancient type, moulding his mind and his speech. 

1 It is not impossible, however, that the real virtues of Athens 
fell behind her reputation (see pp. 337 ff.). Even as a boy Li- 
banius had failed to find any good in the sophists of Antioch 
(Lib., i. 8, 11 ff.). * i. 18, 12. 'P. 96. 



312 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

As, in the case of those who shoot again and again and 
sometimes hit the mark, continued practice begets, as 
a rule, through use of the instruments, not an under- 
standing of the art of sharp-shooting, but a knowledge 
of the way how to shoot straight, so Libanius, attaching 
himself, and keeping close, to the best guides, the 
ancients namely, and following the correct masters, did, 
by dint of emulation, and imitation after comparison, 
enter upon the right path and enjoy to the full the 
fruits of his course." 

In the matter of corps-service also Libanius was not 
a loyal supporter of his professor. The waylaying of 
new arrivals at the ports of entry was not the only form 
of service which the various corps undertook in the 
interests of their masters: rival corps often came to 
blows in the streets of Athens, 1 and students and even 
professors were attacked and roughly handled. Even 
in a previous century, when the rivalry was less bitter 
than it was in the fourth century, Heracleides had been 
driven from his chair at Athens by the party of Apol- 
lonius and had retired to Smyrna to teach, 2 and in the 
fourth century, as we have already seen, Proaeresius 
was in a like manner compelled to leave the city for a 
time. The populace sometimes took sides and perhaps 
even assisted in the frays, 3 while the professors them- 
selves were generally only too ready to abet their pupils 

1 Also at Antioch in the second half of the century (Lib., ii. 
345, 6; iii. 254, 20), and doubtless elsewhere. In the time of 
Libanius's boyhood student battles were probably unknown at 
Antioch (see p. 314). 'Philos., 613. 

• Eunap., p. 69. They are even accused of being the prime 
offenders (Lib., iii. 254, 8). Cf. Eunap., p. 76. 



STUDENT DAYS 313 

in this form of warfare. On one occasion, as we read, 1 
Athens was as if in a state of siege, and the streets were 
so dangerous by reason of the terrorization practised 
by the student-corps that no professor dared go down- 
town to the public school-rooms, but each held his class 
in his private auditorium, which was built in his own 
house. We read in Libanius 2 how a certain Arabian 
professor, while going to his breakfast, or mid-day meal, 
from the bath, was attacked by two hired agents of a 
rival band of students and had his face plastered with 
mud, and how another, from Egypt, was hounded from 
the city and his profession. In the latter case the poor 
sophist was actually dragged from his bed and carried 
to a well, where he escaped a ducking only by promising 
to leave the city. Himerius 3 was on one occasion so 

1 Eunap., p. 69. 

a i. 60, 12. The professor was probably Diophantus. 

3 Or., xxii. The Emperor Justinian put an end to all such pro- 
ceedings on the part of students at Constantinople and Berytus 
(Dig., proef. omnem, 9). With the liberty which prevailed at 
Athens it is interesting to compare the strictness of the regulations 
governing the movement of students at Rome (Cod. Th., xiv. 9, 1): 
"Whoever comes to Rome for the purpose of study must first 
present to the head of the board of censors a letter from the 
judges of his province (from whom he in the first instance received 
permission to come), containing the name of his city, and a state- 
ment of his age and qualifications. As soon as he arrives, he must 
signify to what studies he intends to devote himself. The board 
of censors must be kept informed of his residence, in order that 
they may see that he follows the course which he has laid out 
for himself. The censors must likewise see that, when the stu- 
dents come together, they conduct themselves as persons who 
have a proper regard for their reputation, and who consider that 
those societies which we hold to be next to criminal are to be 
avoided; also that they do not attend public shows too often, or 
banquets that last far into the night. Furthermore, if any 
student acts in a manner unbecoming his condition as one pur- 
suing a course of liberal study, he shall, under authority by us 



314 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

severely handled by the students of a rival sophist that 
he was obliged for a considerable time to intermit his 
lectures. From all such escapades Libanius held himself 
aloof. "I had heard . . . ," he says, 1 "ever since I was 
a boy, of the battles between the student-corps waged 
in the very streets of Athens; of the clubs and swords 
and stones and wounds; of the indictments that resulted 
from all this, and the defences that were made, and the 
sentences that were pronounced; of all the wild and 
daring deeds undertaken by the students to win for their 
teachers gain and glory. I held these fellows brave for 
the dangers that they ran, and their cause a just one; 
not less so than that of those who take up arms in their 
country's defence. And I prayed to the gods that it 
might fall to my lot, too, to win such laurels; to run 
down to the Peirseus and to Sunium and the other ports 
and waylay the new arrivals as they disembarked from 
the trading-vessels; and then to go to Corinth 2 and 

given, be publicly flogged, and then straightway put on board 
ship, taken from the city, and transported back to his home. 
Those who devote themselves assiduously to their studies may 
remain in the city till their twentieth year; after that time, who- 
ever neglects to return to his home of his own accord shall be 
made to do so by the city-prefect under disgrace. That these 
regulations may be carefully observed, it shall be the duty of 
Your Sincerity to advise the board of censors that they each 
month make a list of those who are studying in the city, stating 
whence they come, and how many, by reason of their age, are 
ready to return to Africa and the other provinces; an exception 
being made in the case of those who are burdened with the duties 
of corporations. Similar lists are to be transmitted yearly to the 
office of Our Clemency, in order that, learning the qualifications 
and proficiency of each, we may judge whether, and at what 
time, he is necessary to Our service." ■ i. 15, 16. 

2 Corinth was at this time the seat of government for the 
province of Achaia, and it was there that the proconsul had his 
residence and administered justice. 



STUDENT DAYS 315 

stand trial for my conduct; and to string dinner on 
dinner in endless succession, and, after quickly going 
through my money, to cast about for somebody from 
whom to borrow more. But the goddess, Fortune, well 
aware that I was headed straight for what would have 
been my ruin — that snare so fair in appearance and 
with so fair-sounding a name, a corps-captaincy — very 
wisely, as it is her wont to do, withdrew me from that 
sophist in whose defence I considered it obligatory 
upon me to undertake such service, and, hurrying me 
apart, put me under another, with whom I was to know 
only the labors done for study's sake. This result came 
about in the following way: Owing to the indignity 
which had been put upon me in the matter of the oath, 
I would not myself undertake any of the services I 
have mentioned, and, inasmuch as my condition of 
bondage was not a voluntary one, no one would order 
me to do what I would not do willingly. Furthermore, 
the students were not without fear that I might become 
annoyed at the burden of such duties, and, assigning 
as my excuse the compulsion under which I lay, take 
it into my head to revolt against my oath. I was 
therefore relieved from the necessity of taking part 
in their expeditions and campaigns and battles and 
reviews, and even in the Great Battle, in which every- 
body, not excepting those who were exempted by reason 
of their years, engaged, I sat apart by myself and re- 
ceived from others the account of what befell." * 

1 It would seem from the last sentence that the older students 
were exempted from service of the sort. In later life, when 
Libanius came to speak to his own students, he expressed him- 
self on occasion quite differently with relation to the customs 
which he as a youth condemned (i. 202, 20). 



316 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The Great Battle here referred to was a contest mem- 
orable of its kind; it was fought in the Lyceum, east of 
the city proper. 1 Another memorable contest took 
place many years before Libanius came to Athens. 
The case that grew out of this contest was celebrated in 
the annals of sophistry. The description of this event 
is preserved to us by Eunapius, 2 who based his account 
on the narrative of an eye-witness; the case well 
illustrates the customs prevailing at Athens at this 
time. 

It had happened, in the course of this civil warfare, that 
the boldest of Apsines's pupils got the better, in a hand- 
to-hand contest, of the pupils of Julian; and having, in 
truly Laconic fashion, roughly handled them, they then, 
as though they were themselves the injured party, made a 
public accusation against those whom they had thus se- 
verely treated and brought to within an inch of their lives. 
The case was carried to the proconsul, and he, showing 
himself a stern and formidable officer, gave orders that 
both the teacher and all those against whom the accusation 
had been lodged should be arrested and imprisoned, like 
common cutthroats. The man seemed, however — natu- 
rally, being a Roman — to be well educated, and not to have 
been reared in a rough and unpolished school. Julian 
came at the appointed time — for he had been summoned 
to appear — and Apsines also was present — though he 
had not been summoned, but came to speak in behalf of 
those who made the charge. 

When the time set for the examination was at hand, the 
plaintiffs were allowed to enter. The leader of this unruly 
Spartan band was Themistocles, an Athenian, who was also 
the originator of the trouble; being over- violent and arro- 
gant, he was a disgrace to his name. The proconsul, 

1 Lib., ep., 627. « P. 69. 



STUDENT DAYS 317 

straightway eying Apsines fiercely, said, "Who ordered 
you to come here?" "I have come," answered Apsines, 
"to plead for my children." The governor concealed his 
thoughts by saying nothing, and the prisoners, who were 
the injured party, were allowed to enter in their turn, and 
with them came their teacher. Their hair was unkempt, 
and their bodies were battered and bruised; so that pity 
might have been awakened even in the heart of the judge. 
The plaintiffs were given the floor, but Apsines had 
hardly begun to speak when the proconsul, interrupting 
him, said, "Stop! this is not the Roman way of conducting 
a case. Let the one who first made the accusation now 
come forward and conduct the trial." They were quite un- 
prepared to undergo the ordeal of a trial then, and Themis- 
tocles, who had made the original accusation, finding him- 
self compelled to take the floor, first changed color and bit 
his lips in his embarrassment, and then, looking stealthily 
at his companions, asked under his breath what was to 
be done. They had come into court simply to shout and 
applaud their teacher's speech, and consequently the 
silence and embarrassment were great. . . . First Julian 
remarked plaintively, "Let me speak." Then said the pro- 
consul, raising his voice, "Let there be no applause, either 
on the part of you who are practised speakers or on the 
part of the students. You shall soon know what Roman 
justice is. Let Themistocles carry through the accusation, 
and be the defence made by whomever you, Julian, select 
as best." No one rose to accuse, Themistocles proving a 
disgrace to his name, but, when the proconsul ordered 
whoever could, to make answer to the original charge, then 
said the sophist Julian, "By your strict observance of 
justice, Proconsul, you have made of Apsines a veritable 
Pythagoras, for he has learned, though late, a needed 
lesson, the way to hold his tongue. Long ago — and of 
this you yourself have experience — he taught his pupils 
the Pythagorean art of silence. If, now, you bid us defend 
ourselves, release from bondage one of my pupils, Prose- 



318 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

resius by name, and you shall yourself judge whether he 
has been taught the art of Pythagoras or that of the Attic 
people." . . . 

At once quite calmly . . . Proaeresius, one of those 
under accusation, came forward unfettered, and, his teacher 
crying to him loudly and in a high tone of voice — like 
those who incite and urge on the runners at the games — 
and sharply withal, the words, "Speak, Proaeresius, now 
is the time to speak," he pronounced the opening of a 
speech. . . . He broke forth into a lament over the in- 
dignities he and his companions had suffered, and here 
and there in the introduction were words in praise of his 
teacher; there was also, scattered through it, reproof, 
conveyed in the turn of a phrase, of the precipitancy of 
the proconsul, who had made them undergo and endure 
things which they ought not to have undergone even if 
they had been convicted. The proconsul sat with bowed 
head, deeply impressed by what Proaeresius had said, and 
by the dignity, the ease, and the well-rounded sonorous- 
ness with which he spoke; and then, while the whole audi- 
ence, eager to applaud, but awed as before an omen sent 
from Zeus, sat wrapped in a mysterious silence, Proaeresius, 
putting his words into the form of a second introduction, 
began again thus . . .: "If," he said, "one is permitted 
to do every wrong, to accuse his neighbor and have his 
words believed even before the defence is made, well and 
good, let the whole city go with Themistocles." Then the 
proconsul, stern and inflexible man, jumping to his feet 
and waving his purple-bordered robe . . . applauded 
Proaeresius like a boy. Apsines also applauded — not that 
he wished to do so, but necessity knows no master; and 
Julian, the teacher, only wept. The proconsul ordered 
the defendants to be dismissed, and then taking aside, first 
the teacher from among the plaintiffs, and afterward 
Themistocles and the Laconians, reminded them of the 
festival called the Scourging at Sparta and also of the 
process called by that name at Athens. 



STUDENT DAYS 319 

Libanius has intimated that running into debt and 
giving 'spreads' were two of the favorite forms of 
amusement of students at Athens. There were others, 
however. "Never," he says, 1 "while I was at Athens, 
did I engage in a game of ball; and I was far from 
joining in a carousal or participating in the night raids 
made on the houses of the poorer people." Himerius, 
we remember, warned his students at the beginning 
of the term against playing ball, practising athletics, run- 
ning about town, and going to the theatre. Drinking- 
bouts were frequent, and often at these bouts, as well 
as at the ' spreads/ intellectual entertainment and con- 
tests of wit were joined to good cheer. Favorite oc- 
casions for ' club ' or ' class ' dinners were the Saturnalia 
and other holidays. 2 

Student life at Athens and student life at Antioch 
probably differed very little. The rivalry between the 
various sophists was more intense at Athens than it was 
at Antioch, and the warfare between the student-bands 
was carried on with greater bitterness and fierceness; 
there may also have been at Athens certain traditional 
customs which had failed to take root at Antioch; but the 
main characteristics of the student life of the two places 
must have been essentially the same. We shall not be 
far wrong, therefore, if, in order to gain a clearer idea 
of the conditions that prevailed at Athens at the time of 
Libanius's stay there, we glance at the picture which 

> i. 18, 2. 

" Philos., 585, 586, 587; Gell., xv. 2; xviii. 2 and 13. Some- 
times the students went a-hunting (Philos., 587). For further 
evidence that athletics sometimes interfered with studies, see 
Lib., ep., 1119. 



320 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Libanius draws of his own experience as a teacher at 
Antioch. 

Swearing at goldsmiths, insulting cobblers, drubbing 
carpenters, kicking weavers, hauling hucksters, threat- 
ening oil-dealers, were among the pastimes of Libanius's 
own students. 1 Libanius on one occasion delivered a 
lecture 2 wherein he dissuaded his students from taking 
part in any such unseemly pranks, as also from engaging 
in street-fights with the students of rival corps; he 
urged them rather to stand as an example to the towns- 
men of the advantages of an education. 

It is evident that Libanius often had hard times with 
his students. "Perhaps some think," he says, when 
giving his reason for having intermitted for a time his 
usual displays, 3 "that I shall give as the reason the in- 
justice that exists in connection with the fees." Aiter 
describing how the student, having received money 
from his father to give to the sophist, squanders this 
on wine and dice, he continues: 

And then, after behaving thus shamelessly toward his 
teacher, he bounds into the school-room, bawling at the 
top of his voice and threatening and using his fists ; holding 
everybody in contempt and looking upon his simple pres- 
ence there as sufficient pay for the sophist. Now the stu- 
dent of scanty means we can forgive, at the same time that 
we censure him; for he gives not because he has not; but 
when he arrays himself in line with the others and joins 
them in their insolence, how can anybody tolerate such 

> Lib., iii. 254, 13. 

1 Or., lix (iii. 252). A student was once sent to Libanius, recom- 
mended by the promise he gave of turning out a good fighter 
(Lib., ep., 58). 

" i. 197, 16. 



STUDENT DAYS 321 

conduct? Sometimes those who are poor go to even 
greater lengths than those who are rich, as though they 
hoped, by so doing, to conceal the fact that they have not 
paid their fees. Then, cringing at the feet of the rich, they 
spend their time in such flattery as this (flattery so credit- 
able to them !), and, when they leave the school, they either 
ignore the sophist altogether or do their best to work him 
all manner of harm. 

[Another man, then, might make this his excuse for not 
speaking in public, but not so Libanius; he had long been 
accustomed to charge nothing for his instruction, and the 
matter of fees could, therefore, have no influence with him.] 

What is the reason, then, if this is not ? Why, I fail to 
see that my students as a body care in the least for my 
declamations, or have the slightest appreciation of my 
worth. And of this the students themselves have given clear 
proof, both in spring and in winter, whenever I have spoken 
at either time of the year. For see : I send my servant out 
to invite them to a lecture; he hurries off and executes my 
order. They, instead of, as they ought, outstripping the 
servant, are absolutely unmoved by his example. Some 
linger over their songs, which they all know, others loiter 
away the time in idle foolery or in laughter. Then, after 
arousing by their deliberateness the ire of all beholders, 
they, if they ever do decide to come, walk, both outside 
and inside the room, as gingerly as young girls, or, rather, 
as men balancing on a tight rope. It is indeed enough to 
make those who are seated indignant, to have to wait for 
such dawdlers as these to enter the room. All this takes 
place before the speaking begins; after the sophist has 
entered upon his declamation and begun to speak, then 
the students keep up a constant signalling back and forth 
about drivers and mimes and horses and dancers, and 
about this or that battle that has taken place or is to take 
place. Further, some stand like statues, with one arm 
thrown over the other, while others delve in their noses 



322 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

with both hands at once; still others sit without moving 
a muscle, notwithstanding all the brilliant points that I 
make, or forcibly detain in their seats those who have been 
moved by my words. Some count those who come in after 
them, while others find it sufficient to gaze at the leaves, 
or are better pleased to chatter over chance subjects than to 
listen to the speaker. Surpassing all this in audacity is 
the act of those who interrupt genuine applause with 
spurious, choke the voice of enthusiasm at its source, and 
parade through the whole theatre, withdrawing from the 
lecture all whom they can influence, either by false mes- 
sages or by invitations to come and bathe before breakfast 
— this also being an extravagance on which some spend 
their money. . . . 

Now no one can accuse me of dealing in slander and of 
uttering false charges, on the ground that, if that was done 
which I say was done, I should have flown into a passion 
at once and have spoken then and there words of anger 
against the wrong-doers. You know well enough that 
that is the very thing I often did, and that I, on not a few 
occasions, raising my voice, bade my man seize the loafer 
by the neck and throw him out of doors. If this was not 
done, it was by reason of the prayers which were uttered 
in his behalf. . . . 

Evidence that the students, when they attended a decla- 
mation, did not pay the attention they should have paid, 
is furnished by the fact that on no occasion did they carry 
away in their minds a word of what was said. Exactly 
the opposite was the case with those who preceded you in 
these halls. They departed from the lecture, each with 
some different scrap of what was said stored in his memory. 
Then, when they were outside, they tried to fit together 
what they remembered and so restore my speech; and if 
anything, however little, was forgotten, they felt grieved 
at the loss. And for three or four days after that they did 
nothing at home but recite my words to their parents, and 



STUDENT DAYS 323 

here at school they kept this up for a much longer period. 
You go back to your songs, which you remember with the 
greatest facility. ... If any one asks you whether I 
have spoken and on what subject, to the first question he 
will doubtless receive an answer, but, as for what I said, 
nobody can tell that. 1 

The principal reason given by Libanius for not ex- 
pelling students is noteworthy: 2 

The greatest consideration of all is my regard for these 
students' parents and native cities. I greatly fear that, if 
they should hear of their sons' expulsion, they would treat 
those that were thus disgraced as if they were dead, at the 
very least; looking upon dishonor as worse than death and 
knowing that such dishonor as this is greater than that in- 
flicted by the courts. For from the latter men may be 
freed, but the former remains with them forever, accom- 
panying them, at every age, from boyhood to death, and 
depriving them of all sense of freedom. " Shameless, dog- 
eyed one, wert thou not banished from the holy rites of 
learning, because thou didst pollute the altar of the 
Muses?" It was, then, because I wished to spare their 
mothers and fathers, their cities, and their future children 
— for even to them this disgrace would have to descend — 

1 Ingratitude and rudeness were not uncommon on the part of 
students toward their teachers (Lib., i. 146, 1; ii. 311, 4; 422, 16; 
iii. 443, 5; Themis., 289 a; Himer., or., xx; ec, xvii). For 
talking 'horse,' etc., in school, see Tac, Dial, de or., 29; cf. Cic, 
De orat., ii. 5, 21. Compare the proceedings of students at 
Carthage (Augustin., Confess., v. 8). Sometimes, according to 
Epictetus (ii. 21, 12 and 13; cf. iii. 24, 22 and 24), during the 
lectures, students from afar would let their thoughts wander 
homeward, and, recalling how their parents had sent them forth 
with great hopes, would wonder why no letter came from home 
and allow themselves to get discouraged at the arduousness of 
their task; then the lecturer's words fell on deaf ears. 

* i. 207, 6. 



324 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

that I did not expel from my class these unruly students, 
but, instead, decided to speak no more, and, as I believe, 
decided wisely. 

The strap ' and the rod 2 were the common instru- 
ments of chastisement, but Libanius, in his later years, 
abandoned the use of these; "for I have given up," he 
says, 3 " trying to bring my students into a path of recti- 
tude by means of blows and stripes, finding that these 
often produce the opposite effect to that desired. Being 
of the belief that counsel and exhortation are more 
beneficial and can better effect a cure, I have recourse 
to them." Early in life, however, he was not averse to 
the use of the strap on lazy boys. Occasionally he 
received remonstrating letters from the boys' fathers, 
which he found it necessary to answer. 

i aKdTos (Lib., i. 479, 17); i/xrfr (ib., ii. 425, 12); £vri}/> (Themis., 
261c); ndant (Lib., iii. 253, 5). 

^ fi&fidos (Lib., ii. 425, 12). 

8 iii. 253, 5. Cf. ib., ii. 311, 6; iii. 270, 18. His students, he says, 
did everything for him willingly, without the fear of blows (i. 178, 
15). In school, boys were laid on their stomachs and flogged on their 
backs and posteriors (ib., i. 646, 6), but possibly university stu- 
dents received more dignified treatment. Sometimes they were 
lashed about the legs (ib., ep., 1119). Gregory of Nyssa (De 
castigat., 312) recommends, first to whip the boy, then to keep 
him after school and deprive him of his breakfast. Libanius 
sometimes caused unruly students to be evicted from his dis- 
plays (i. 200, 23). Himerius was also opposed on principle to 
corporal punishment (or., xv. 2). Philager, noted for his quick 
temper, is said on one occasion to have boxed the ears of a pupil 
whom he caught napping in the class-room (Philos., 578). 
Proclus, in order that his pupils might not hiss and jeer at one 
another, practices which, says Philostratus (604), were common 
in the class-room, had them enter in a body, and seated them, 
the older boys singly, and the younger boys and the pedagogues 
filling in the spaces between these (cf. Quint., Inst, or., ii. 2, 14). 



STUDENT DAYS 325 

The person who sent you word about the strap and the 
whipping [he writes on one occasion 1 ] ought to have 
added the reason for the whipping. For then you would 
not have felt hurt, as is now the case. For your sorrow 
seems to be due, not to the fact that your son has received 
a whipping, but to the thought that, if he had not com- 
mitted some great wrong, a whipping would not have been 
considered necessary. Now hear my attitude in regard to 
these matters. If one of my students commits a wrong 
which it is disgraceful even to mention, I expel him, and 
allow him not to taint my class with his infection. But if 
a student is lazy and neglects his studies, I use the lash. 
In the first case, I fear him as I should fear a festering 
sore, and drive him from my presence; in the second case, 
I arouse with the strap one who is sleeping. Now the 
latter was the error and the punishment of your son. He 
abandoned his books and became a sprinter, but he also 
made amends on his legs, and now practises his tongue 
instead. Now don't inflict on him a second chastisement, 
in the shape of your displeasure, or consider the boy bad, 
for he looks on his brother as an example, respects you, 
and will some day perhaps make his performances equal 
yours. 

That teachers were often deterred from punishing 
their pupils by the fear of losing their patronage is clear 
enough. 2 Libanius says that the defection of students 
from one sophist to another was in the time of his youth 
a thing almost unheard of; a few had been known to 
transfer their allegiance, but the action had been con- 
sidered dishonorable, and the students who engaged in 
it had been shunned by nearly all their friends. In his 
later life, however, hardly a day passed without its 
example of such defection, and sometimes a student 

■ Ep., 1119. 2 See Lib., ii. 425, 12 ft. 






326 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

went the rounds of all the sophists, swearing allegiance 
to each in turn. To remedy this evil, Libanius once 
called the sophists of Antioch together and proposed 
that they should enter into an agreement whereby no 
sophist was to accept a student who came to him in 
that way. Any father who was dissatisfied with the 
sophist under whom he had placed his son was to have 
the privilege of examining his son or of having him 
examined by competent persons, in order to determine 
if the sophist was neglecting his duty. If there was ap- 
parent evidence that the sophist was neglecting his duty, 
then the father might enter a formal complaint against 
him and have the case tried before a board of his own 
selection, composed of teachers and non-teachers. In 
case this board adjudged the sophist guilty, the boy 
might be transferred to another sophist; otherwise no 
change could be made. 1 Such a contract, we learn, was 
actually made and put in force. 2 
On one occasion the students of Libanius's school 

1 Or., xliii (ii. 420). The act of transferring one's allegiance 
from one sophist to another was called apostasis (airdaraais; in 
Eunap., p. 80, per av&araa is). Students often resorted thereto 
to avoid paying their dues, and they improved the occasion to 
insult their former teacher (Lib., ii. 422, 16; cf. Augustin., Con- 
fess., v. 12). Owing to the custom of apostasis, the sophist was 
made the slave of the pedagogue, who, if things did not go to his 
liking, could induce his ward to transfer his allegiance (ib., ii. 283, 
7; 425, 7; iii. 445, 24). Apostasis, in the second half of the 
century, was common at Athens and elsewhere (Himer., or., 
xxxiv; Synes., Dion, 13). Sometimes a student went from 
one university town to another (Lib., iii. 457, 1). 

2 Lib., ii. 314, 8. Some measure to forbid transference of 
allegiance Libanius seems to have recommended to the council, 
and even to have carried through, shortly after his settlement in 
Antioch (ep., 407). 



STUDENT DAYS 327 

went to the length of tossing in a blanket a certain 
pedagogue who had incurred their displeasure. The 
process is thus described : l 

They stretch a carpet on the ground and then take hold 
of it on all four sides — sometimes more, sometimes fewer, 
according to the size of the carpet. Then, placing the un- 
happy victim in the centre, they toss him as high as they 
can (and that is not a short distance), accompanying their 
action with laughter. Great is the amusement also of the 
standers-by, as they behold the pedagogue spinning in the 
air and hear him cry out as he goes up and again as he 
comes down. Sometimes he falls in the carpet, which is 
held high above the ground, and he is then saved; at 
other times, missing the carpet, he strikes the ground, and 
leaves the field, with some of his limbs maimed or bruised 
— danger being thus added to insult. And, worst of all, 
even such an event arouses the mirth of the students. 

This attack on the pedagogue, however, was a unique 
case, for generally the pedagogue was held in high 
esteem and was much respected by both students and 
sophists. 2 

■ iii. 259, 14. 

2 The pedagogue, in the Greek sense of the word, was a slave 
who was a sort of personal attendant of the boy and kept watch 
and ward over him. "He is the protector of his fresh young 
age," says Libanius (iii. 255, 13), "his guardian and his defence. 
. . . He beats off all attacks, as a barking dog beats off wolves. 
. . . The pedagogue has, as his sole care, the boy and the boy's 
welfare." He awoke the boy in the morning and made him learn 
his lessons. "What the boy has received from his teacher, it is 
the duty of the pedagogue to preserve for him; for the means of 
preservation belong to him: he urges the boy, he shouts at him, 
he produces the rod, he brandishes the strap, he endeavors, by 
laboring at his task, ... to drive into his memory the lesson 
he has heard." When the boy went to school, he was accom- 
panied by the pedagogue and by a foot-boy, the latter of whom 



328 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Such is the picture drawn by Libanius of the student 
life at Antioch in the second half of the fourth century, 
and similar, as has been said, must have been the 
student life at Athens when Libanius was himself a 
student there. During these years that he was a 
student there, he studied hard and faithfully. "Not a 
day," he says, 1 "was without its labors, except — which 
was not often the case, I think — when some holiday 
intervened to give me rest." He travelled about the 
country with an eager interest in its antiquities and its 
local customs. "I visited Corinth, 2 neither as a de- 
fendant nor as a prosecutor, but at one time when 
hurrying to attend a Spartan festival, the Scourging, at 
another time while on my way to Argos, there to be 
initiated in the local mysteries." He must have dis- 
tinguished himself among the students at Athens, for, 
when a proconsul, who was determined to have peace 
in the town, deposed three of the most contentious of 
the sophists, he selected Libanius, who was then only 

carried his books (Lib., ii. 80, 19; iii. 145, 2; 260, 13; cf. Luc, 
Amor., 44, and the Philostratus passages referred to below). 
Girard (L'Ed. athen., p. 116) and Becker (Charades, trans., p. 
226) say that the pedagogue carried the books, but there seems 
to be no evidence for this (if we except the passage in Lucian, 
Amor., 44, which is not decisive). The pedagogue was superior 
to such service. Sometimes the pedagogue and the foot-boy 
waited outside the school-room until the boy had finished his 
lessons (Philos., 618), sometimes they accompanied him inside 
(ib., 604; Lib., iii. 200, 15). Many students, especially the older 
ones, were unaccompanied by a pedagogue. At times the 
pedagogue abetted the student in his resistance to the professor 
(p. 187, n. 1; Lib., iii. 445, 24; cf. ep., 1173, 1508). 

« i. 19, 8 

' i. 18, 9. So Gellius visited Delphi and iEgina (Gell., xii. 5; 
ii. 21). 



STUDENT DAYS 329 

twenty-five years of age, to fill one of the vacant chairs. 
The anger of the proconsul becoming in time appeased, 
the three sophists were reinstated; "but the honor was 
mine," says Libanius, 1 "in that I had been deemed 
worthy of the place." 

Many friends also Libanius made at Athens — friends 
who were a consolation to him in later years. 2 Life- 
long friendships were formed at college in those days 
as they are in these. Two celebrated instances are those 
of Gregory and Basil, and of Proseresius and Hephaes- 
tjon. "Thence he was sent," writes Gregory, referring 
to Basil, 3 "by God and his own noble and unquench- 
able thirst for knowledge to the real home and seat of 
learning, Athens; 'golden Athens/ it was indeed tome, 
if ever to anyone in this world, and the introducer to 
all things beautiful. For there my acquaintance with 
this man was cemented into firm friendship, and, seek- 
ing knowledge, I gained happiness; in another way 
having the experience of Saul, who, while seeking his 
father's asses, found a kingdom." Proseresius and 
Hephsestion were students together at Athens in the 
school of Julian. It was hard at that time to say which 
showed the greater ability or which was the more in- 
digent, but they were firm friends. They had, we are 
told, 4 but one coarse cloak and one outer mantle be- 
tween them, and three or four faded and threadbare 

« i. 20, 6. 

2 E. g., Ecdicius (Lib., ep., 147); Flavianus (ib., ep., 556); 
Severus (ib., ep., 1145); Eugnomonius, to whom Libanius recalls 
old times (ib., ep., 473). Mygdonius, he says, was like a father to 
him at Athens (ib., ep., 471). See also ib., ep., 1135. 

« Or., xliii. 13. 4 Eunap., p. 78. 



330 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

blankets. One day Proaeresius would go to lectures and 
Hephaestion would lie abed and study, and on the next 
day Hephaestion would appear in public and Proaeresius 
would stay at home. We remember that, at a later time, 
when both Proaeresius and Hephaestion had been nomi- 
nated for the chair of sophistry at Athens, and party 
feeling ran high, Hephaestion withdrew from the city, 
so as not to interfere with his friend's success. 

We should be glad to learn where Libanius lived 
while at college, but on this point he has left us little 
information. We know that his 'chum* was one 
Chromatius, with whom he had a room and with whom 
he took his meals. 1 So far as we are aware, there were 
no dormitories for students in those days, but the pro- 
fessor sometimes took the student into his own family. 2 
Otherwise, the student took private lodgings, or, pos- 
sibly, he sometimes found quarters at an inn. 3 

Libanius had been four years at Athens when the 
time came for his departure. He had intended to stay 
four years more. "I had the intention," he says, 4 "of 
adding, before leaving Athens, another four years to 
the four I had already passed in the city, my mind, as 
it seemed to me, requiring a more thorough training 
than it had yet received. For, however perfect I seemed 
to others, I by no means felt myself to be so, but I was 
disturbed by the fear that, no matter where I went, 
sophists would swarm about me and try by ten thousand 

1 Lib., ep. t 393. 

*Ep., 285, 290, 378, 379, 381. Libanius at one time allowed 
two of his students to room at Daphne (ep., 1235). 

3 Lib., ii. 359, 21; Philos., 553; Themis., 293 d; Eunap., p. 75. 
• i. 20, 15. 



STUDENT DAYS 331 

tests to pull me down. It seemed to me necessary, 
therefore, ever to seek and gain more knowledge." 

Whether four years was the usual length of the college 
course, we are not informed. Libanius speaks 1 of one 
of his own students who was obliged to leave in the 
second year of his instruction, when he had hardly 
acquired even the rudiments of his art. Some students, 
we know, spent more than four years at college: Euna- 
pius, for instance, five, 2 and Gregory Nazianzene from 
ten to twelve. 3 Of course, the expense was often a 
determining factor in the matter of the length of stay. 
Lodging, board, tuition, and, especially, books were 
among the chief sources of outlay, 4 and sometimes a 
father found it necessary to take up a contribution 
among his friends, in order to defray the cost of his 
son's education. 5 

1 iii. 229, 1; cf. 202, 13 ft. « Eunap., p. 92. 

8 See Sievers, Leben des Lib., p. 31, n. 144. The law course at 
Berytus was four years, until Justinian made it five {Dig., prcef. 
omnem). In an earlier age, Isocrates's course was from three to 
four years (Isoc, De antid., 87). Crispinus, mentioned in the 
text below, studied at Athens the same length of time as Libanius 
(Lib., i. 21, 10). Rohde (Rhein. Mils., 40, p. 75) considers the 
usual length of time to have been five years. The fact that 
Libanius's school at Antioch contained four rhetors suggests a 
course of four years. See Luc, Rhet. prcec, 9. A letter of 
Hadrian suggests as a possibility a residence of at least ten years 
in a city for the purpose of study (Cod. Jus., x. 40, 2). 

* Lib., ii. 289, 9; ep., 1192. 

5 Lib., ep., 1192; cf. ib., ep., 322; Luc, Somn., 1; John Chrys., 
De sacerdot., i. 5. Travelling expenses were another item. Some- 
times the sophist gave assistance (Lib., ep., 22, 1452, and pp. 
182, 183, 308, n. 2). Letoius, a senator of Antioch, once assisted 
needy students out of his own pocket (ib., ep., 464, 467). The 
Praetorian Prefect, Anatolius, sent to a poor student who was 
studying under Libanius one hundred staters, which, according 
to Libanius, would not go a great way toward defraying the 



332 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

The reason which induced Libanius to change his 
mind and to leave Athens was one of the heart rather 
than of the head. One of his most intimate friends, 
Crispinus, had been summoned home to Heraclea in 
Asia Minor, and he strongly urged Libanius to ac- 
company him. After much hesitation, Libanius deter- 
mined to go, but, before leaving Athens, he made avow 
to return at some future time. 1 

Regretfully in those days did the student look forward 
to the hour when he must say good-by to his college 
and his college friends. The scene that was enacted on 
the occasion of Basil's departure was not unusual. 

And now the day of departure was at hand [writes 
Gregory 2 ] and was marked by all the usual features of 
such an occasion — farewell speeches, good wishes, calls 
for us to return, laments, embraces, and tears. For nothing 
is ever so hard as for those who have lived together at 
Athens to tear themselves from the city and from one 
another. The scene that was then enacted was indeed 
mournful and worthy of long remembrance. Friends and 
fellow-students, the members of our college corps, and 
with them many even of the teachers, standing in a ring 
about us, refused, whatever should happen, to let us go, 
entreating us, holding us back by force, and using words 
of persuasion. What did they not say, and what did they 
not do, that beings in great sorrow would be likely to say 

cost of the boy's education (ib., ep., 78). For other cases of as- 
sistance given to students, see ib., ep., 1237, 1308. Sometimes 
students worked their way through college (ib., i. 162, 7). The 
student sometimes deposited his funds with his teacher (Luc, 
Symp., 32; Lib., ep., 78). 

>i. 21, 9; 25, 11. 

a Or., xliii. 24. Julian, the emperor, wept at leaving Athens 
(Jul., Ep. ad Ath., 275 a), and one of Libanius's students at leaving 
Libanius (Lib., ep., 631). Cf. also Isoc, De antid., 88. 



STUDENT DAYS 333 

and do ? Here I do indeed blame myself, as well as that 
divine and incomprehensible soul, presumptuous though 
it be in me to say so. He, giving the reasons which induced 
him to depart, showed himself superior to those who tried 
to detain him, and secured, though not without the 
exercise of physical force, consent to his departure, but I 
was left behind at Athens; partly (for I will tell the truth) 
because I was too weak to persevere in my resolution, and 
partly because I was betrayed by my friend, who was 
induced to let me go from his side, though I relaxed not my 
hold on him, and to yield me to the mercy of those who 
pulled me back. 

Libanius and his friend went, not by sea, but over- 
land, to Constantinople; on their way through northern 
Greece and Macedonia they entertained many of the 
cities through which they passed with samples of their 
eloquence, and were greeted with great applause. 
From Constantinople to Heraclea the distance was 
short, and in the latter place they were entertained by 
one of Crispinus's relatives. Here Libanius took leave 
of his friend, and set out to return to Constantinople. 1 

i Lib., i. 23, 2. 



CHAPTER XV 

AFTER COLLEGE 

When Libanius left his friend, Crispinus, at Heraclea, 
and returned to Constantinople, he was intent upon 
carrying out the vow which he had made to revisit 
Athens. Arriving at Constantinople, he went down to 
the Great Harbor and proceeded to look about him for 
a shipmaster bound for Greece. "While I was thus en- 
gaged," he says, 1 " I felt a tug at my cloak, and one of 
the teachers of the place — you know him, Nicocles, the 
Lacedaemonian — whirling me around and bringing me 
face to face, said: 'This is not the tack for you; you 
should take a different course/ ' What different course/ 
said I, 'when I am bound for Athens?' 'Why, bless 
you/ said he, ' stay with us and take charge of the young 
men here; there are many rich fathers in Constantinople. 
Give up your voyage and listen to me. Would you in- 
jure the prospects of both of us and run away from all 
the great good fortune in store for you ? When you can 
stay here and be professor, why go farther to put your- 
self under the instruction of another ? I will engage to 
make you within twenty-four hours 'boss' of the town 
and lord over forty young men, the cream of the place. 
Once lay the foundation and you will find riches pour 
in upon you in floods/" 

« i. 24, 5. 
334 



AFTER COLLEGE 335 

Libanius, however, was deaf to all entreaties, and 
took ship to Athens. He appears not to have stayed 
long at Athens this time, but, mounting a two-wheeler, 
he was off again at the beginning of winter. On arriving 
at Constantinople, he at first met with discouragement. 
"When I entered the market-place at Constantinople," 
he says, 1 "I was just in time to see a Cappadocian pro- 
fessor taking his chair — one, it chanced, who had been 
appointed by the emperor in compliance with a request 
of the local council. He was an excellent speaker, and 
had received the call, I believe, as the result of a single 
contest. There he stood in all his glory. I made 
inquiries of an old man as to the name of the sophist, 
his country, the manner of his coming and the terms, 
and was struck to the heart by the answer I received. 
Going to Nicocles, who had offered to introduce me to 
the city, I referred to our previous conversation. i You 
are simple/ he said, 'very simple, if you do not know 
the value of striking while the iron is hot, and this after 
you have been at Delphi. It is useless for you to think 
of the promises I then made or to remind me of them; 
you destroyed all that when you sailed away to Athens.' " 
Setting up a school of his own, however, Libanius soon 
drew large crowds of students. "Each man urged his 
neighbor, and it was not many days before my corps 
numbered more than eighty. Some poured in to me 
from without the town; others, deserting their former 
masters, flocked to me from within; those who had 
been all agog for the races and the theatre changed their 
interests and became devotees of letters. ,, 2 

» i. 27, 1. 2 i. 29, 6. 



336 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

But the intrigues of rival sophists soon drove him 
from the city, and he retired, first to Nicsea, then to 
Nicomedia. In the latter place he spent five prosperous 
and happy years, at the expiration of which time he was 
obliged, much against his will, to return to Constan- 
tinople. During the period of his second residence at 
Constantinople, he received an invitation to go to 
Athens to teach, which he recognized as a great honor, 
but, remembering the bitter spirit that prevailed among 
the sophists there, he declined to accept the call. 1 One 
summer he visited Antioch. Sixteen years or more had 
passed since he left it, to go to the University at Athens. 
"I saw once more," he says, 2 "the roads and gates 
I loved so well, I saw the temples and the colonnades, I 
saw the house where I had lived as a boy, now old and 
gray, I saw the whitened hairs of my mother, I saw my 
uncle, still happy in the name of father, and my own 
elder brother, now called grandfather, I saw my many 
school companions, some of whom were in office, while 
others were acting as advocates, I saw the old family 
friends, though few, alas! their number, I saw the city, 
prosperous and happy in its wealth of learned men." 

While at Antioch, he spoke before the people, and 
won such applause that he was moved to sue the em- 
peror for permission to remove from Constantinople to 
his home. He was successful in his application, but 
just as he was about to start for Antioch, he received a 
bitter message. "My cousin," he writes, 3 "was dead, 
and my uncle lay stricken with grief. Fortune spoiled 
her gift, for I no longer had any care to return to the 
« i. 58, 4 * i. 62, 2. 3 j. 67, 5. 



AFTER COLLEGE 337 

city of my birth, where I should see but the tomb of her 
who was to have been my wife." His uncle, however, 
was urgent that he should come. "Accordingly I went, 
but not with the same heart as before." l At Antioch, 
as at Constantinople, he at first met with disappoint- 
ment, but in the end prospered, and before long received 
an official appointment. 

We have now carried Libanius through his college 
days and seen him established as a professor of elo- 
quence in his native town. At this point we should 
properly leave him. Let us, however, before we do so, 
see how in his mature years he looked back on the days 
spent at Athens and on the life there. 

Notwithstanding his love for the city, he probably 
never lost his repugnance to the barbarous customs 
which prevailed there. "No wonder," he says in a letter 
to a friend, 2 "if one falls in love with the Attic land, for 
it is a land that naturally awakens love, whether one 
has seen it or not. Fathers believe that their sons will 
bring back from Athens either learning or, at least, the 
reputation for learning. Now, in that I respect Acacius, 
I approve of his having sent his son thither; but as I 
kove the man, I should prefer that he had kept the boy 
at home. Of the teachers there, some are old fogies, fit 
only to eat and sleep at their ease, while others seem in 
need of teachers themselves, who shall teach them this 
first of all: that cases are decided, not by arms, but by 
arguments. As it is, they produce for us soldiers rather 

• i. 67, 13. 

*Ep., 627. Cf. ep., 330 (of Athens): fi4ya y&p els rbv \ovtrbv 
filov, rb fj.r] tt)v t6\iv aypoetv. 



338 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

than orators. 1 Many a one have I seen bearing the 
scars of the wounds which he received in the Lyceum 
fight." But for the city itself and its associations he 
never had anything but the fondest remembrances. 
"Happy is he," he says in another letter, 2 "who can 
run through many places in a few days, and then say: 
I have seen the Areopagus, I have seen the Acropolis, 
I have seen the shrine of those who after great anger 
were reconciled, when he who had supported his father 
was freed from guilt, I have seen her who acquired the 
city as the result of a contest, the nurse of Erechtheus. 
Such a man I count happy for what he has seen, and 
you I count happy in that you can enjoy all these 
things and many more every day." "Berytus," he 
says again, 3 "I confess, I love for many things, but 
Athens for all." Occasionally some circumstance would 
unexpectedly recall the old days to his mind. "When I 
saw Clematius," he writes, 4 " I was reminded of the old 
happiness of the days when I first greeted Athens — the 
Athens of Theseus. I recalled the first evening, the 
bath, the 'spread/ and the conversation that there took 
place." Still, those days seemed much like a dream 
to him. "You will see again," he once more writes, 5 
"our old friend, the gentle Severus, who has enjoyed 

1 Elsewhere the teachers at Athens are spoken of as being 
inferior to their reputation. Cf. Themis., or., xxvii; and Eunap., 
p. 87, of Anatolius. But Anatolius was chronically disaffected 
to sophists (Lib., ep., 78). See also Cicero, for a much earlier 
time (De orat., iii. 11, 43). Cf. p. 311. 

*Ep., 881. *Ep., 10. 

4 Ep., 1071. Then, as is the case now, those who had been to 
college used fondly to talk over their student days (ib., iii. 268, 1). 

8 Ep., 1511. See also ep., 866, 1080, 1389; and p. 291. 



AFTER COLLEGE 339 

Athens to the full. As for me, I seem to have passed 
quickly through there as in a dream, and to have gone 
on my way, but he, knowing how much this spot sur- 
passes all other spots, prolonged his happiness there. 
Hence he has reaped from the land more profit than 
others have. The profit which one reaps from Athens 
is not learning only, but friends, in whom, indeed, 
Severus considers no land inferior to his own." 



CHAPTER XVI 

CONCLUSION 

As we review in our minds the education that has 
here been described, we cannot fail to be impressed by 
the great part which personality played in it. Even in 
the fifth and fourth centuries B. C, as we have else- 
where seen, 1 the personality of the wandering teacher 
of ethics or of science was one of the chief forces which 
drew young men in the direction of a life of study. The 
same, or similar, was the case in the later period. The 
young man, brought up in his distant home at Antioch, 
is, to be sure, attracted to Athens by his own unquench- 
able thirst for knowledge and the halo that hangs about 
the city, but faint rumors of the men there and of their 
personality reach even his ears. When he arrives at 
Athens, he does not select this or that study to pursue, 
but he chooses a certain man. Indeed, the choice could 
not well lie among subjects, for if the boy did not, as 
comparatively few did in the fourth century, wish to de- 
vote himself to philosophy, he was sure to turn to the 
subject of sophistry. Now the subject of sophistry was 
the same for all teachers and for all students, and only 
by the personality of the man who taught it was it made 
to differ in the hands of one from what it was in the 
hands of another. In some cases, the establishment of 

1 P. 16. 
340 



CONCLUSION 341 

a distinguished sophist in this or that city was sufficient 
to divert the stream of studying youth from all other 
centres, 1 and a man of the personality and force of 
Themistius could for a time draw students even away 
from the study of sophistry and toward that of philoso- 
phy. Not unfrequently it happened that, as in the case 
of Julian, who afterward became emperor, a student 
went from one university town to another, drawn each 
time by the name of some distinguished man whom he 
wished to hear. The place, if we except Athens alone, 
was not so important as were the men. 

Owing to the important part which personality 
played in the popularity of the teacher, there grew up 
between the teacher and the student that strong per- 
sonal relation which was characteristic of the Greek 
university life. The teacher, as we have seen, was the 
intellectual parent of the pupil, and he acted as the 
pupil's guide and protector; the pupil was under moral 
obligation to take an interest in his teacher's welfare 
and to support his teacher in all ways in which this was 
possible. 2 

Though the custom which prevailed, whereby a stu- 

1 When Libanius was teaching at Nicomedia, students flocked 
thither, instead of, as before, to Athens (Lib., i. 39, 10). So 
Heracleides, when teaching at Smyrna, drew young men, not 
only from Asia, but from Europe and Africa as well (Philos., 613). 
Julian drew young men to Athens from all quarters of the earth 
by the excellence of his oratory and his nobility of character 
(fieytdei 0i5<rea>s, Eunap., p. 68; nobility of character distinguished 
Proaeresius also, ib., p. 78). These are but a few out of many cases. 

2 The students were, of course, expected to fight in their 
teacher's behalf (Lib., i. 16, 4 ff.). See especially the two striking 
orations, Lib., xxxii (ii. 266) and xxxv (ii. 307), where a plea is 
made to the boys for support on the ground of moral obligation. 



342 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

dent was required to attach himself to a single teacher, 
had its pleasant feature in this close personal relation 
between the teacher and the student, it apparently had 
in another way its unfortunate side. In some cases it 
probably led to servile imitation of the teacher and his 
literary style by the student, when the student could 
better have put his attention upon the old masters of 
style. 1 If it had been the custom for the student to 
attach himself to more than one teacher, he would, 
doubtless, by a broader acquaintance with men and 
with methods, have been able to avoid this evil. Per- 
haps, however, the evil was not so great as has some- 
times been supposed, 2 for there seems to have been a 
regulation at Athens, as well as at Antioch, whereby a 
student was allowed to attend at least the displays, and 
possibly the instruction, of a second teacher, not the one 
to whom he was regularly bound, 3 and the custom of 
changing from one teacher to another became more 
common as the fourth century wore on. The cases also 
are not infrequent in which we are told that this or that 
man attended at different periods of his course the 
lectures of more than one sophist. 4 

1 Lib., i. 18, 12. The Emperor Julian is said to have imitated 
Libanius's style (ib., i. 527, 10), and he succeeded so well in this 
that he was held to have been a pupil of Libanius (ib., i. 452, 24). 
Favorinus was said to have been a pupil of Dio, but his style 
differed as much from Dio's as did that of those who had never 
heard the latter (Philos., 491). Cf. ib., 522, 527, 535, 576; 
Himer., ec, x. 13. Imitation of the ancient authors also, of 
course, played a prominent part in the sophistical education. 
Cf. Quint., Inst, or., x. 2. 

2 E. g., by Herzberg, Gesch. Griech., iii. p. 350. 

3 Lib., i. 14, 4; ii. 279, 280. See p. 304. 

4 E. g., Philos., 576, 594, 605. 



CONCLUSION 343 

[Another important feature of the ancient Greek uni- 
versity life was the great weight that was put, in the in- 
struction of the day, on the spoken word. The spoken 
word, indeed, as we have already elsewhere seen, 1 
was a matter of racial instinct, and the whole sophis- 
tical education was based on the communication of 
ideas by speech. The student did not so much learn 
from books as he did from the teacher's mouth, or at 
least the lessons that he obtained from books were ex- 
pounded and enforced by oral instruction. This fact is 
emphasized by the word that was used to express the 
relation of student to teacher: 'to be the pupil of' was 
regularly a/cpodadac, 'to hear/ The ancient student 
did not ' read ' sophistry under such and such a teacher, 
nor did he 'take a course under' this or that professor, 
but he 'heard' such and such a sophist. It was the 
influence of the living voice and the contact of mind 
with mind on which stress was laid. This is seen most 
notably in the grand displays of the sophists themselves. 
In these much of the effect produced was doubtless due 
to the circumstances of the moment and arose from the 
personality and manner of the sophist, reinforced by the 
sympathetic encouragement of the audience, rather than 
to any more enduring qualities of thought and style. 2 

Still, it may be doubted whether the living voice was 
considered quite so potent a force in instruction in the 
centuries after Christ as it had been in the time of 
Socrates. As we have seen, memory played an im- 

' Pp. 5, 25. 

2 It was recognized by the ancients themselves that extempore 
speech did not conduce to thorough work (Syn., Dion, 12; Philos., 
583, 607; Luc, Rhet. prcec, 20). 



S 






344 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

portant part in the sophistical training, and the cultiva- 
tion of the memory resulted in, if it was not necessitated 
by, the accumulation of stores of facts in the minds of 
the students. Facts, as well as a thorough knowledge of 
the ancient authors, the student was obliged to have. 
Thus it happened that polymathia {iro\vfia6Ca) y much- 
learning, was considered at this time a valuable part of 
a man's education, and the 7ro\vfjLa6rj<;, the man of many 
facts, was looked up to and admired. 1 This attitude 
toward education was quite opposed to that of an 
earlier time. In the fifth century B. C. an harmonious 
development of the parts of man — moral, mental, and 
physical — and a rational adjustment of these toward 
the outer world were considered of more importance 
than much knowledge. 

The custom of the present day is rather to decry the 
ancient sophistical training. Its weaknesses are so ap- 
parent, and its insufficiency, as judged by modern 
standards, is felt to be so great, that it is easy to de- 
nounce the whole system as artificial and barren. And 
yet, perhaps, the better way is to see what there really 
was in this education and what it professed to do in the 
world as it was at that time. Artificial and barren, in a 
certain sense, the education was. By laying too great 
stress on the form in which a thing was said, we may 

1 Longinus is called by Eunapius (p. 7) " a living library and a 
walking museum" (jSi/3\io0i}k7/ tis f\v efvpvxos Kal wepiiraTOvv 
/iov<Teiov). Cf. Philostratus (618), of Hippodromus: irXeTara fxev 
i&fjutdev ''EW^pojv rCbv ye fxerd rbv KamrabbicTjv ' AXi^avbpov fxv^fxrjv 
evrvx^o'dmuv, irXeiara 8e dviyvut fierd ye ' Ap./xd>viov rbv airb rod 
TLepi.ir6.Tov, iicelvov yap iro\vypafj./JuxTd)Tepov &vdpa otiirw eyvuv. Also 
of Polemo (541). iroKvuad'qs and irokvpuOla are common expres- 
sions in this period (e. g., ib., 627; Porphyr., Vit. Plotin., 20). 



CONCLUSION 345 

admit, it led to all manner of excesses and extravagances 
in the matter of style; and this, too, we cannot deny: 
it did not contain within itself the possibilities of great 
speculative or scientific truths. If we look, however, to 
the grand displays of the sophists themselves, we can 
say — as has been said by others * — that we no longer 
have the means of judging of these aright. Many 
things in them are lost to us to-day, and of others we 
have but an imperfect understanding and appreciation. 
The play of accent and rhythm, the delicate adjustment 
of sound and sense in the selection and arrangement of 
words, the harmony of form, we try to understand, but 
do so only imperfectly. The orator, his personality, the 
rise and fall of his voice, the variety and appropriateness 
of his gestures — these we can only imagine. Even the 
bare words which were spoken are in most cases un- 
known to us. 

But — and this is a thing that is more often lost sight 
of — however the case may be with these displays, it 
does not seem that it is from these alone, or from these 
primarily, that the sophistical education is to be judged. 
They were admittedly the sublimation of the sophist's 
art. The great university of to-day is judged, not so 
much by the comparatively small number of specialists 
whom it fits to be teachers, as by the great body of stu- 
dents whom it sends out into the world. Greek sophistry, 
did not profess to teach men scientific knowledge or 
abstract theories — the performance of that task was 
left to the specialists and to the various schools of phi- 
losophy, as long as these existed — but it did profess to 
■ E. g., by Rohde, Gr. Rom., p. 334. 






346 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

prepare men for the active duties of citizenship — the 
citizenship of those days — and to provide them with a 
broad and liberal culture, and this task it performed on 
the whole satisfactorily and effectively for several hun- 
dred years. The fact should be emphasized that rhet- 
oric meant in those days more than what we under- 
stand by the term. It was the common heritage of the 
Greek-speaking peoples and that which distinguished 
them from barbarians. 1 In this sense it meant educa- 
tion, culture, humanism, civilization even. It provided 
a literary training on classic lines, and at the same time 
developed the mental and moral parts of the boy. The 
sciences in their elements, it should be remembered, 
the boy had, if he had been properly brought up, studied 
before he entered the sophist's school, and, if he studied 
them further than that and to the neglect of sophistry, 
he was in danger of receiving a purely technical educa- 
tion. Of the product of the schools it is unjust to judge 
by the school exercises that we possess. With more 
reason do we turn to the orations of the few sophists of 
whom we have literary remains, and here, if we have 
Himerius with his mincing, dainty style and meagre 
thought, we have also Libanius, direct, forceful, sincere, 

and often truly eloquent. 

1 See p. 4. Cf. Isoc, Paneg., 50: (y ir6\is tjplQv) rb rCtv 'EXXiJpwi' 
6vo/ia ireTrolrjKe p.rjK^Tt tov y£vov$ dXXa tt)s diavotas doKetv ehac, Kal 
fiaWov IZWyvas KaXeiffdat roiis rijs 7rai5ei$<rews tt}s yperipas fj tox>s 
ttjs Kotvijs (pfoeias p.€T^x 0VTa ^ ' Lib., ep., 372: toijtovs (i. e., X670US) av 
afifoy rtj, els Xaov ipx^fxeda to?s fiapfidpois. X6701 (rhetoric) and 
ircu5«/a or iraldevats are often identified; e. g., Lib., i. 365, 9: 
'EWrjviKjj vaideta Kal \6yois' ib., i. 452, 20: AvSpes iv 7rcu5ei/<ret 
Kal \6yois redpanfitvot. Cf. ib., i. 502, 8: iraidevviv jcaXetre ra firrj, 
and the eulogy of letters, ib., ii. 303. It was rhetoric that made 
Lucian a Greek (Luc, Bis accus., 30). 



CONCLUSION 347 

It has been made matter of reproach to the ancient 
education of the early Christian period that it dealt so 
extensively with mythology and the life of a past age. 
Such a reproach has justification. And, yet, it should 
be remembered that this mythology and this life of a 
past age were of the nature of a corpus vile; they formed 
a traditional body of material, of which the sophist 
made use in his class-room instruction, and which the 
sophist and the student moulded and kneaded into 
various forms to suit their purposes. The principles 
which were involved in these processes were later ap- 
plied to the conditions of daily life. As Choricius says, 1 
"all kinds of suits that occur in real life are imitated 
in the fictitious cases." What matter, one may say, 
whether the principles were illustrated by Demosthenes 
and Demades or by John Doe and Richard Roe? 
Notwithstanding that even in ancient times there were 
some who asserted that the student, on emerging from 
the sophist's school, was ill-prepared for the problems 
of real life — a complaint that was doubtless in many 
cases justified — it is apparent that on the whole, the 
sophistical education did provide a satisfactory prepa- 
ration for the professional and the official life of those 
times. No system of education is likely to go unques- 
tioned in any age, and complaints similar to that men- 
tioned above are common even to-day. 

We may enumerate, then, the means by which soph- 
istry in ancient times sought to accomplish its aim of 
preparing men for the duties and successes of life and 
of giving them a broad and liberal culture. 
1 See p. 240, above. 



348 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

First, by giving the student a thorough grounding in 
the literature of the Greek people, the only literature 
which, in that part of the world and at that time, was 
thought to have any value. The student who went 
through his course in ' grammar ' and sophistry with 
faithful adherence to duty should have been familiar 
with the best Greek authors, in a way to be able to 
quote them and to feel them a part of himself. They 
permeated his life and thought. His knowledge of 
them was a more or less critical knowledge, for he had 
been required in the schools to judge and discuss them 
from many points of view. 

Secondly, by giving the student a mass of incidental 
information on many subjects. He acquired, in the 
course of his 'grammatical' and rhetorical studies, a 
good knowledge of Greek antiquities — of the laws, the 
customs, the institutions, of former times — and he be- 
came steeped in the spirit of the Greek religion and 
mythology. The history of the Greek people from the 
time of Solon to that of Alexander he learned thoroughly 
in the sophist's school, while Greek literary history he 
obtained from the 'grammarian.' 

Thirdly, by training the student to write and to speak 
the Greek language correctly and effectively, and to 
arrange his material in the best way for the purpose in 
hand. Much practice and study of the best models 
were the means employed to this end. 

Fourthly, by teaching the student to think, and to 
exercise his judgment and imagination. The practice of 
arguing cases and of taking sides for and against was 
helpful in the training of his reason and judgment, 



CONCLUSION 349 

while the other practice of impersonation could not but 
tend to develop his imagination. 

Fifthly, by cultivating readiness of thought and 
speech. 

And, sixthly, by training the ethical side of man. We 
remember that under Socrates rhetoric was regarded as 
having a moral force; and Aristeides, the second -century 
sophist, says: "There being four parts of moral excel- 
lence " — prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude 
((frpovrjcns, (ra)<f>pocrvvr} , Sikcuoctvvt) y avSpeia 1 ) — "all 
these have been produced by rhetoric, and what gym- 
nastic and the physician's art are in the case of the body, 
that rhetoric is shown to be in the case of the soul and 
matters of state." This view that there was an ethical 
value in the study of letters is expressed in one form or 
another in many authors. 2 The man of literary train- 

1 ii. p. 72. The cardinal virtues. Cf. Menander, Speng., Rh. 
Gr., iii. p. 361; also Syn., Dion, 8, and Themis., 146 d. 

2 E. g., Lib., ep., 1143: tA ykp £k ireTrai.fevixhr)s \jsvxys oiaivifi^ 
k&Wovs ner^x eLV ' Theon, Progym., 1, p. 148 (Speng., Rh. Gr., ii. 
60) : 17 5ti TTJs xP e ^ as yv/J-vaaia ov fxdvov tlvol ftivaiuv \6yuv ipydferai, 
dXXd Kal xPWrbv Tt ?j9os. According to Aristeides, rhetoric is con- 
nected with all the virtues: it is begotten of prudence, upholds 
justice, is supported by temperance and fortitude (ii. p. 72; cf. 
pp. 58, 64-66, 128, 132). It holds together and is the ornament 
of communities (p. 136). It aims at what is best, and is the in- 
structor of the people (pp. 56, 58). The orator will himself be a 
good man. In so far as he does or advises wrong, he is an im- 
perfect orator (pp. 76, 77, 80, 81, 154). His goodness, however, 
is apparently primarily a matter of policy (p. 83). Whether 
Aristeides understands that there is a sort of reflex action pro- 
duced by rhetoric, such that the orator, simply by practising his 
profession, is himself benefited morally, is less clear. The view 
of Aristeides is that of Quintilian, who defines the orator as a 
good man skilled in speaking (Inst, or., xii. 1; cf. prcefat., 9, and ii. 
15, 1). This was also Marcus Cato's definition (see, further, 
Seneca, Contr., i. prcefat., 9; Cic, De orat., ii. 20, 85; and ib., De 



350 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

ing could by his wise guidance preserve the state, and 
he possessed within himself the means for his own 
salvation. 

The ideal of the education of these centuries is stated 
in the words of Julian, the emperor, and has already 

invent., i. 3, 4). Goodness, with Quintilian, is a part of the intent 
of the word orator. In so far as the orator is not a good man, he 
is no orator. The orator gets his morality through study (xii. 2, 
1). The view of Aristeides and Quintilian is, of course, far in ad- 
vance of the prevailing view of the fifth century B. C, when 
oratory was commonly held to be fully as often on the side of 
wrong as on the side of right (for Plato's view, however, see the 
Gorgias and the Phcedrus, and Quint., Inst, or., ii. 15, 28 ff.), 
and, apparently, somewhat in advance of the view of Isocrates. 
Isocrates enumerates the benefits which oratory has conferred 
on mankind: it has civilized men and enabled them to live in 
communities, it has established laws about the good and the 
bad, the just and the unjust, etc. (De antid., 253-257). But 
this is all the part of the (morally) good oratory; there might 
also, apparently, be a (morally) bad oratory. Isocrates seemu 
not to have arrived at the point of declaring that the bad orator 
is no orator, though this seems almost to be implied by his point 
of view. Thus, he says that "true and right and just speech is 
the reflection of a good and faithful soul" (255), but it is only 
the true and right and just speech that has any worth for him. 
Isocrates's orator is a good man chiefly as a matter of policy, 
for it is seen that words supported by character carry more 
weight than words alone (285); but still the civilizing effects of 
the study and practice of oratory on the orator's character are 
recognized (254). Aristotle's view is about that of Isocrates, 
except that Aristotle affirms that there may be bad orators as 
well as good orators. With him, the orator is considered with 
reference to his art, not with reference to his moral principle 
(Rhet., i. 1, 14). Rhetoric is a good which may be misused 
(i. 1, 13). Its ends, however, are the expedient, justice, and 
honor (i. 3, 5). In Theon the ethical effect is more definitely 
stated: "it produces not only command over words, but a kind 
of good moral disposition" (see above). This disposition may 
be supposed to be produced in two ways: by the general human- 
izing effect of the study of literature, and by the habit engendered 
in the orator by constant dealing with noble and honorable 
themes and with matters involving questions of justice, tern- 



CONCLUSION 351 

been given above. 1 "Right education I consider to be, 
not the gracefulness that resides in words and on the 
tongue, but a healthy disposition of an intelligent mind, 
and true opinions about the good and the bad, the noble 
and the base." This ideal, however, received its em- 
bodiment in the man who had been trained, morally, 
intellectually, and aesthetically, to use his powers in the 
interest of the state. Such a man was the orator. 
The orator was not the man of fluent tongue and grace- 
ful speech solely; nor was he the man of scientific 
attainments or technical knowledge; he was the man 
of broad learning and general culture, trained to see the 
distinctions of right and wrong, and to act with refer- 
ence to them in the service of his ttoXis, or native city. 
The teaching of the best educators of the day, men like 
Libanius and Themistius, was in full accord with the 
profession of Julian, just quoted. 

These, then, are some of the things that sophistry in 
ancient times professed to do. Not always did it carry 
out its professions, and it led to excesses and abuses 
which were recognized, even in those days, by such men 

perance, and the like. With Himerius, \6yos is the handmaid of 
dpenj and carries out her behests (ec, xvi. 2). Libanius con- 
stantly recognizes the beneficial effect of education on character 
(e. g., ep., 192, 1048), and the sophists in general realized that 
they were the guardians and educators of the morals, no less 
than of the intellect, of their students; Herodes Atticus was re- 
proved by another sophist for neglecting (as was charged) the 
conduct of his pupils (Philos., 579), while Julian says (ep., 42) 
that the teaching of morals was a part of the sophist's profession. 
From the beginning of the Attic education to the close of this 
Hellenistic education the moral development of the student 
always played a leading part. 

» P. 125, n. 2. See Jul., ep., 42, 422 A. 



352 UNIVERSITIES OF ANCIENT GREECE 

as Lucian and Themistius. Both Lucian and The- 
mistius, however, were sophist-bred, and to both was 
opened up the rich inheritance of the race — the store- 
house of ancient thought — in the ' grammarian's ' and 
the sophist's school. 



INDEX 



Acacius, sophist, his salary, 
175 n.; held an imperial 
chair, 177; trick played on 
him by Libanius, 186 n.; 
left Antioch in 361, 274 n.; 
sometimes taught till night, 
279. 

Academic school, foundation 
of, 27; in first three cen- 
turies A. D., 101, 102; after 
Diocletian, 105, 107, 171, 
199. 

$5civ, 234. 

Adrian of Tyre, sophist, re- 
ceives appointment, 91 ; as he 
went to and returned from 
his lectures, 134; took part 
in sports of his students, 
187; his eloquence, 236; 
eighteen when he went to 
study at Athens, 293 n.; 
affection of his students for, 
309. 

Mrariumy 172. 

JEschines, transplants the 
study of rhetoric to Rhodes, 
35; on educational legisla- 
tion, 59, 60. 

Agathias, trans, from, on emi- 
gration of Neo-Platonic phi- 
losophers, 127, 128. 

&yd>v, 231 n. 

d/coirtTtnJs, 36. 

dicpoaadcu, 220 n., 343. 

&Kpba<ns y 220 n. 

»Axpw/*fTi;s, 297, 305. 

Alaric, 121. 

Albinus, Lucius Postumius, 62. 

&\eiTovpyri<rla, 164 n. 

Alexander, sophist, 259-261. 



Alexander of Aphrodisias, 102 
n., 138. 

Alexander the Great, events 
following his death, 41, 42; 
one result of his death, 44; 
his regard for Athens, 45, 46. 

Alexander Severus, 99. 

Alexandria, foundation of, 48; 
museum and libraries at, 49; 
seat of scientific learning and 
philosophy in the second 
century A. D., 95; attitude 
of Caracalla toward the 
Peripatetic philosophers at, 
99; in the fourth century 
A. D., 115, 116, 124; in the 
third century A. D., 124; 
in the fifth century A. D., 
124; Neo-Platonism at, 125. 

Alexandrian period. See Mace- 
donian period. 

tyuXXa, 211 n., 265 n. 

Ammonius Saccas, 125. 

dpoipal, 179 71. 

dmtr/ceuij, 209. 

Anatolius, 142 n., 226 n., 331 n. 

Ancyra, 116 n., 124. 

Annona, 178. 

Antigonids, 42. 

Antioch, foundation of, 50, 284; 
library and museum at, 50; 
in the second and third cen- 
turies A. D., 95; in the 
fourth century A. D., 115, 
116; in the fifth century 
A. D., 124; teachers at, by 
whom appointed, 140; num- 
ber of teachers at, 144-146; 
salaries of professors at, by 
whom paid, 172, 173, 176, 



353 



354 



INDEX 



177; condition of the soph- 
ists at, in the fourth cen- 
tury A. D., 191-194; displays 
at, no fee charged for, 220; 
Libanius's first display at, 
261, 262; school buildings at, 
267; the School of, 270-278; 
teaching at, generally con- 
fined to the morning, 278; 
an important city of the 
East, 283, 284; situation of, 
284; description of, 284-286; 
number of its inhabitants, 
286; student life at, 319- 
327; Libanius settles at, 337. 

Antiochus IV, 46, 47. 

Antiochus the Great, 45, 50. 

Antiochus Grypos, 47. 

Antiochus XIII, 50. 

Antoninus Pius, gives honors 
and salaries to philosophers 
and rhetoricians, 86-91. 

Apamea, 140 n., 278. 

Aphthonius, 209. 

Apollonius of Rhodes, 49. 

Apostasis, 326 n. 

Applause, methods of, 252. 

Appointment to professorial 
chairs, methods of, 134-142. 

Areopagus, Court of the, 63, 
66. 

Aristarchus, 49. 

Aristeides, sophist, compared 
to Demosthenes, 95; writ- 
ings of, 95; not an extem- 
Eore speaker, 220 n., 224; 
is audiences, 220 n., 250 n.; 
trans, from, on the inspira- 
tion of the sophists and the 
enthusiasm of the audiences 
at displays, 249, 250; on the 
relation of rhetoric and 
moral excellence, 349. 

Aristippus, 29. 

Aristophanes, the Clouds cited, 
17. 

Aristophanes of Byzantium, 49. 

Aristotle, on the subjects of 
education, 22; on good and 
bad oratory, 349 n. 



Arithmetic, 24, 25, 197. 

Arnim, H. v., his account of 
the course of the struggle 
between the rhetorical and 
the philosophical education, 
79 n. 

Asia Minor, condition of, in ; 
first century A. D., 69, 77, 
78. 

Asiatic oratory, 73 n., 76 n. 

Assistant teachers, 272. 

Astronomy, 25, 96. 

Ateleia, 164. 

Athenaeum, established by Ha- 
drian, 85; the name, how 
used, 152 n.; the centre of 
university life at Rome, 267. 

Athens, education at, in the 
fifth and fourth centuries 
B. C, 10-40; raised to a 
place apart in the imagina- 
tions of men, 44, 48; atti- 
tude of Macedonian princes 
and others toward, in Mace- 
donian period, 44-48; in the 
third century B. C, 51; in 
the second century B. C., 53; 
in the first century B. C, 
53-57; attitude of the state 
toward education in, in pre- 
Christian times, 58-63, 66; 
in the time of Domitian, 82; 
connection of Hadrian with, 
83-86; connection of He- 
rodes Atticus with, 86; Uni- 
versity of, established by 
Antoninus Pius and Marcus 
Aurelius, 86-94; Univer- 
sity of, from Marcus Aure- 
lius to Constantine, 97-108; 
in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies A. D., 122-124; in the 
second century A. D., 130- 
134; University of, relation 
of the proconsul of Greece 
to, 139, 140; number of 
teachers at, 142, 143; con- 
test for the headship of the 
school at, 153-158; visit of 
Hermogenes to, 195; dis- 



INDEX 



355 



plays at, uncertain whether 
fees were charged for, 220; 
pictures of academic life at, 
in the second century A. D., 
257-261; student life at, 
296-319, 328-330; perhaps 
fell behind its reputation, 
311, 337, 338; regrets of stu- 
dents at leaving, 331-333; Li- 
banius's feeling for, 337-339. 

Athletics, 266, 319. 

Audiences at displays, char- 
acter of, 249-253. 

Auditorium, auditorium Capi- 
toli, 152 n. 

Augustus, his attitude toward 
teachers, 79 n. 

Aurelian, emperor, 106, 124. 

Aurelius, Marcus, establishes 
the University of Athens, 
91-94. 

Autun, University of, 141 n., 
172. 

Axiochus, trans, from, 19 n. 

Bacchce, the, of Euripides, 47. 

Bactria, 47. 

Ball-playing, 266, 319. 

Banquets, 28, 133. 

Basil the Great, held that there 
was no antagonism between 
pagan learning and Chris- 
tianity, 110, 111; Gregory's 
account of his education, 
/ 196, 197, 291; trans, of a 
letter to Libanius, 251; age 
[/ as a student, 292; escaped 
hazing, 305; and Gregory, 
friendship of , 329; departure 
from Athens, 332, 333. 

Baths, public, classes held in, 
267 n. 

Battles of student corps, 312— 
318, 320. 

Berytus, celebrated for its law 
school, 95, 115, 116, 124; 
age of students at, 293; 
course at, length of, 331 n. 

Board of electors, 135-138. 

PovXevT^piop at Antioch, 267. 



Caesar, Julius, his attitude 
toward teachers, 79 n. 

Caesarea in Cappadocia, 124. 

Caesarea in Palestine, 124, 
140 n., 146, 173. 

Callimachus, 49. 

Capitol, the, at Constantino- 
ple, 149, 150, 266, 267 n. 

Capitolium, the word, 152 n. 

Caracalla, 99, 168. 

Cassander, 46. 

Catana, 63, 64. 

Cato, his ideal of the orator, 
349 rc. 

Centumalus, Gnaeus Fulvius, 
52. 

Chairs, of eloquence, endowed 
at Rome, 81; of rhetoric, 
'grammar,' and philoso- 
phy, established at Athens 
and elsewhere, 87, 88, 91, 
92; the political chair at 
Athens, 87 n., 94 n.; the soph- 
ists' chair at Athens, 94 n., 
142 n., 153; the educational 
chair at Athens, 94 n., 142 n., 
220 n.; the chair at Rome, 
94 n.; other references to, 
142 n.; methods of appoint- 
ment to, in the second and 
third centuries, 134-138; 
methods of appointment 
to, after Diocletian, 138- 
142. 

Chalcis in Syria, 116 n., 172. 

Charondas, 63, 64. 

XopyySs, 296. 

Choricius, professor at Gaza, 
124; trans, from, on Pro- 
copius, 210, 211; trans, 
from, introductions to 
themes, 239-242. 

X op6s, 270, 274, 296. 

Christianity, ethical teaching 
of philosophical schools tak- 
en up by, 102; conflict of, 
with the ancient religion and 
education, 109-129. 

Chrysanthius, philosopher, 237, 
248 n. 



356 



INDEX 



Cicero, trans, from, on Athens, 
55; on gesticulation, 230, 
231. 

Claqueurs, 253. 

Class, words for, 296 to. 

Class dinners, 319. 

Classes, size of, 185-187, 
272 to.; where they were 
held, 266-269. 

Class-room methods, 211 to. 

Claudius, emperor, 80. 

Claudius Gothicus, emperor, 
106. 

Comedy, studied in the schools 
in second century B. C., 22. 

Commodus, 98, 165. 

Constantine the Great, 106, 
108. 

Constantinople, founded by 
Constantine, 108; celebrated 
for its schools of law and 
philosophy, 115, 116, 126; 
University of, put on a new 
basis by Theodosius II, 124, 
148-151; number of teach- 
ers at, 143-146; the Capitol 
the University building at, 
149, 150, 152 n., 266, 267 to.; 
Libanius's experiences at, 
160 to., 333, 334; Libanius's 
salary at, 173-177; The- 
mistius professor at, 178; 
uncertain whether fees could 
be taken by professors at, 
179; Themistius the head 
of the School of, 278. 

Constantius, emperor, his atti- 
tude toward the ancient edu- 
cation, 112, 113, 116 to. 

Constantius Chlorus, 172. 

'Construction,' 204, 209, 210. 

Contests of sophists, 218, 256, 
257. 

Contr over sice, 224 to. 

Corinth, destruction of, 53; 
seat of the proconsul of 
Achaia, 139, 314. 

Corps, student, 296-304, 312- 
318. 

Cos, 50. 



Councils, connection of rhetoric 
and, 78 to., 119; their power 
of appointing and assigning 
salaries to professors, 134 to., 
139-141, 172-177. See Mu- 
nicipalities. 

Cratippus, 63. 

Crete, constitution of, 63. 

Cynicism, 26 to.. 100 to. 

Cyzicus, 116 to., 140 to. 

Damianus, sophist, 181, 182. 

Dancing, 228, 229. 

Daphne, grove near Antioch, 

286. 
Daphne-Apollo legend, briefs 

of, 209, 210. 
Defection of students, 325, 326. 
Deliberative oratory, 75, 76. 
Delivery of the sophists, 233- 

237. 
Delphi, inscription at, about 

Attalus, 65; oracle sent to 

Julian from, 115. 
Demetrius of Phalerum, 45, 49. 
Demetrius Poliorcetes, 45, 46. 
Demonax, philosopher, 253 to. 

dT)n6criot>, 173 TO. 

Denarius, the, 172 to., 184, 185. 

'Description,' the, 7, 204, 208. 

Dexippus, schoolman and his- 
torian, 105. 

dtddoxoi of the philosophical 
schools, 102. 

SidXefa, 220 to., 223. 

8iicaviK&, 220 to., 224 to. 

Dio Cassius, trans, from, on 
the establishment of the 
University of Athens, 93. 

Dio Chrysostom, 82, 83, 95. 

Diocletian, his accession, 106; 
and Maximian, edicts, 166, 
167; his maximum scale of 
prices, 184, 185. 

Diodorus Siculus, trans, from, 

6 TO. 

Diogeneion, the, 38, 133. 
Dionysius, sophist, 215, 256. 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
trans, from, 21 to. 



INDEX 



357 



Diophantus, sophist, com- 
petes for chair of rhetoric, 
154, 298; Libanius attaches 
himself to, 298, 304 n., 311; 
hounded from Athens, 313 n. 

Displays, held by sophists of 
the first century A. D., 72 
n.; of judicial and delibera- 
tive themes, introduced into 
the sophistical schools, 74, 
75, 220 n. ; given by students, 
211 n.; time of year when 
given, 218; generally public, 
219; generally free, 220; an 
integral part of the sophist's 
course, 221, 222; introduced 
by short speech, 223; the 
main speech, of various 
kinds, 223, 224; speech pre- 
pared or given extempore, 
224, 225; theme, how se- 
lected, 225, 226; power of 
sophists to grasp the nature 
of a theme, 226, 227; sam- 
ples of themes, 227, 228; 
dramatic character of; 228- 
230; action of the sophist in, 
230-232; voice, language, 
and delivery of the sophist 
in, 233-237, 245, 246; sam- 
ples of introductions, and 
passages from themes, 238- 
245; descriptions of the 
manner of certain sophists 
in, 246-248; enthusiasm at, 
248-253; involved strain, 
249 w.; people flocked to 
hear, 250, 251 ; examples of, 
255-262; in what buildings 
held, 267 n.; we cannot 
judge of, aright, 345. 

Dispositio, 211. 

Doctorate, 303 n. 

Domitian, 82. 

Domnio, lawyer, 275. 

Dramatic character of dis- 
plays, 228-230. 

Drawing, 22. 

Drinking-bouts, 319. 

Siva/us, 271 n. 



Educated man, Isocrates's 
ideal of, 33 n. 

Education, Greek, was contin- 
uous, 9; at Athens in the 
fifth and fourth centuries 
B. C, 10-40; and the state, 
58-67; cost of, 183, 331; the 
sophistical, 195-217; the 
ideal of the sophistical, 350, 
351. 

£yia&K\ia irai.8eifj.aTa, fxad^fxara, 
79 n., 198 n. 

iyidiKhios iraidela, 198 71. 

Elementary instruction at Ath- 
ens, 10-13, 18-23. 

Elocutio, 211. 

Elusa, 172. 

Encomia, 264 n. 

Encyclopaedias, 7. 

Enthusiasm at displays, 248- 
253. 

iir&\\ v , 211 n. 

iirayyekla, eirdyyeXfia, 271 fl. 

iirayyeWeadai, 271 n. 

iirapayvQvai, 211 n. 

Ephebi, College of the, 26, 35- 
40. 

Ephesus, 77 n., 95. 

Epicurean school, foundation 
of, 29; and Hadrian, 84, 85. 

Epicurus, founds the Epicu- 
rean school, 29; apparently 
the first man to use the word 
sophist in a purely technical 
sense, 75 n. 

Epideictic, oratory, taught by 
Isocrates, 32, 71; oratory, 
given a wider significance by 
the introduction of judicial 
and deliberative themes, 74, 
75, 220 n.; speeches, charac- 
ter of, 263, 264. 

iiriSell-ets. See Displays. 

2077/Sos, 35. 

Epiphanius, sophist, 154, 298, 
304 n. 

Epistle, the imaginary, 7. 

Epistle-writing, 211 n. 

Epitaph, trans, of, 56. 

Eratosthenes, 49. 



358 



INDEX 



Eudaemon, 172, 274. 
Eumenius, appointed professor 
at Autun by the emperor, 

141 n.; offers salary for res- 
toration of university build- 
ing, 163 n.; his salary, 172. 

Eunapius, biographer, 107; 
discussion of passage in, 

142 n.; trans, from, on con- 
test for chair at Athens, 153- 
158; of himself, at sixteen, 
214; on Libanius's declama- 
tions, 203; on character- 
istics of Libanius, 205, 206; 
trans, from, on Eustathius 
and Chrysanthius, 237; trans, 
from, on Proaeresius, 247; 
taught in the morning, took 
lessons in the afternoon, 
279, 293 n.; important 
source of information, 283 n. ; 
trans, from, on Nymphidi- 
anus, 291 n.; age at which 
he went to Athens to study, 
293 n.\ escaped full initia- 
tory rites, 305, 306; trans, 
from, account of his arrival 
at Athens, 306, 307; his de- 
scription of the sophist Juli- 
an's house, 308, 309; his de- 
scription of Libanius 's meth- 
od of study, 311, 312; trans, 
from, the case of Apsines and 
Julian, 316-318; remained 
five years at college, 331. 

Euphorion of Chalcis, 50. 

Eusebius, sophist, 170. 

Eustathius, 237. 

Examinations, for the Ephebic 
College, 38; for philosophi- 
cal and sophistical chairs, 
135, 147 n., 153; for a soph- 
ist's class, 297 n. 

Excusatio, 164 n. 

Expenses of students, 331. 

Extempore speaking, 224-227, 
343. 

'Fable/ method of treatment 
of, 207-210. 



Farewell speeches, 238, 263, 
266. 

Fees, taken in the philosophi- 
cal schools, 29; of Isocrates, 
32; of the sophists, 179- 
184, 187-189. 

Fielding, Henry, Tom Jones 
quoted, 171 n. 

Fiscus, the, 172. 

Flamininus, Titus Quinctius, 
45, 52. 

Friendships made at college, 
329, 330. 

Gaza, 112 n., 124, 278. 

Gellius, Aulus, on student life 
at Athens, 132, 133. 

Geography, 25, 96, 197. 

Geometry, 24, 197. 

Gesticulation of the sophists, 
230-232. 

Gorgias, 6 n. 

Goths, the, 104, 121. 

Gown, academic, 301-303. 

Grades in education, 18, 19, 64. 

Graduate professional schools, 
120 n. 

Grammar, meaning of the 
word, as used by the Alexan- 
drians, 20; the study of , pro- 
moted by the fifth- century 
sophists, 20, 21; method of 
learning, in the time of 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
21 n.; Greek, foundations of 
syntax laid, 96. 

'Grammar,' chairs of, 88, 
143-145; character of the 
course in, 23, 24, 201, 202. 

'Grammarians,' their course 
of study, 23, 24, 201, 202; 
immunities of, 81, 87-90, 
165-170; officially appoint- 
ed, 88, 134 n., 143-145; hon- 
ored with title, 150; salaries 
of, 172, 178; in Libanius 's 
school, 271; at Antioch, 
275. 

ypafXfiaTi<rT^s, 11, 18, 21, 23, 
24, 25. 



INDEX 



359 



Greece, ancient, extent of, 1, 
2; claimed as an appanage 
by Macedonian kings, 42; 
raised to a place apart in the 
imaginations of men, 44, 
48; attitude of Macedonian 
princes and others toward, 
in Macedonian period, 44- 
48; in the third century 
B. C, 51, 52; in the second 
century B. C., 53; in the 
first century B. C, 53-57; 
attitude of the state toward 
education in, in pre-Chris- 
tian times, 58-67 ; condition 
of, in the first century B. C, 
68-70; attitude of the em- 
perors toward, 80-94, 97- 
99; plundered by the Her- 
uli, 105; overrun by the 
Goths, 121; decrease of the 
political and commercial im- 
portance of, 130. 

Greek language, bond of 
union between diverse races, 
3,4. 

Greek literature, study of, in 
Alexandrian times, 48; of 
the first century A. D., 
68 n. 

Greeks, a people of speakers, 
5, 343; sense of proportion 
highly developed in, 5; in- 
tolerant at times, but intel- 
lectually curious, 17. 

Gregory Nazianzene, held that 
there was no real antagonism 
between pagan learning and 
Christian belief, 110, 111; 
his account of Basil's ed- 
ucation, 196, 197, 291; age 
as a student, 292; trans, 
from, on the hazing of stu- 
dents, 299-301; and Basil, 
friendship of, 329; remained 
from ten to twelve years at 
college, 331; trans, from, de- 
scription of Basil's departure 
from Athens, 332, 333. 

Gymnastic, 10. 



Hadrian, his Hellenism, 83; 
his relation to Greece, 83, 
84; and the Epicurean 
school, 84, 85; establishes 
the Athenaeum at Rome, 
85. 

Hand-books, 213, 227. 

Harpocration, sophist, 274. 

Hazing, 296-307. 

Hellenism, meaning of, 2; in 
what it consisted, 43, 44. 

Hephaestion and Proaeresius, 
friendship of, 154, 329, 330. 

Heracleides, sophist, 309, 310, 
312, 341 n. 

Hermogenes, proconsul of 
Achaia, 195, 196. 

Hermogenes of Tarsus, rheto- 
rician, 95, 248 n. 

Herodes Atticus, his attitude 
toward Athens, 86; put at 
the head of the philosophical 
department at Athens, 93, 
134; entertains students, 
133; death of, 135; said to 
have held a chair at Athens, 
142 n.; and Scopelian, 180, 
181; and Philager, 226; his 
theme of the Athenians in 
Sicily, 243; age at death, 
248 n.; and Polemo, 255; 
and Alexander, 259-261. 

Heruli, the, overrun Greece, 
104. 

'Higher learning/ 14. 

Himerius, important sophist 
at Athens in the fourth cen- 
tury, 107; on the life and 
education of Hermogenes, 
195, 196; trans, from, in- 
troduction to a theme, 238, 
239; age at death, 248 n.; 
his frankness to his audi- 
ences, 254; his introductory 
addresses, 265, 266; severely 
handled by his students, 313, 
314; opposed to corporal 
punishment, 324 n.; his view 
of the relation of oratory and 
virtue, 349 n. 



360 



INDEX 



Hippodromus, sophist, 257- 

259. 
Holidays, 218 n., 279-281. 
Horace, quoted, 69, 131. 
Hypatia, 125. 

Iamblichus, 125. 

Ideal of education, Isocrates's, 
33 n., 349 n.; sophistical, 
350, 351. 

Imitation, 342. 

Immunitas, 164 n. 

Immunities, granted by Ves- 
pasian, 81, 164, 165; granted 
by Antoninus Pius, 86-91; 
further grants of, 98, 165; 
fell into abeyance in second 
half of the third century, 
105; restored in the fourth 
century, 106, 107; of philos- 
ophers, 166, 167; basis on 
which they were granted, 
167-169; attempts to de- 
prive teachers of, 169, 170. 

Impersonation, 217, 224, 228, 
229. 

Impressing of students, 299, 
300. 

Initiation of students, 296-307. 

Inspiration of the sophists, 
248, 249. 

Inventio, 211. 

Isaeus, sophist, 225 n., 248 n. 

Isocrates, his view of music, 
grammar, etc . , 22 n. , 33 ; and 
his school, 31-35, 40; length 
of his course, 32, 331 n.; 
his fees, 32, 183 n.; his ideal 
of the educated man, 33 n., 
349 n. ; said to have held a 
chair at Athens, 142 n. 

Isthmian games, 52, 53. 

John Chrysostom, 121, 198, 

277. 
Jovian, emperor, 116 n. 
Judicial oratory, 75, 76. 
Julia Domna, 98, 168. 
Julian, emperor, trans, from, 

letter on the pagan teach- 



ing, 110 n.; accession of, 
114; death of, 114; oracle 
sent to, from Delphi, 115; 
his education, 198, 199; and 
Libanius, 219 n.; his age as 
a student, 292. 

Julian, sophist, 107; contest 
for chair at his death, 153; 
drew men from all quarters, 
163 n., 341 n.; Eunapius's 
description of his house, 308, 
309; the case with Apsines, 
316-318. 

Justinian, emperor, rescript 
of, suppressing schools of 
philosophy, 126; put an end 
to hazing at Constantinople 
and Berytus, 313 n. 

KaraffKevfj, 209. 
KXeftdpior, the, 211 n. 
Kopv<pa?os, 270, 296. 

KOff/X1JT^t f 37. 

KpiTinds, 23. 

Lagidae, the, 42. 

XaXtd, 223 n. 

Language of the sophists, 233- 
237. 

Latin, increase of, at the ex- 
pense of Greek, 120, 121, 
191; chairs of, 143, 145, 146, 
149; teachers of, at Anti- 
och, 272. 

Law, teachers of, their privi- 
leges, 90 n.; schools of, at 
Constantinople and Berytus, 
116, 124, 126, 149; usurped 
the place of Greek, 119-121, 
191; students of, took pre- 
liminary course in sophistry, 
120 n.; chairs of, in various 
cities, 145, 146; teacher of, 
honored with title, 150. 

Lecture-rooms, 267 n. 

Libanius, distinguished soph- 
ist, 107; trans, from, on 
Constantinople, 108; his at- 
titude toward the Christian 
religion, 112-118; trans. 



INDEX 



361 



from, on Constantius, 112, 
113; feelings of, at the acces- 
sion and the death of Julian, 
114, 115; trans, from, on the 
monks and clergy, 117, 118; 
trans, from, on the decline of 
sophistry, 119-121; his re- 
mark that he would wish to 
bequeath his school to John 
Chrysostom, 121; receives 
an appointment at Athens, 

139 n., 142 n.; called to 
Athens, 140 n.; to Egypt, 

140 n.; toNicomedia, 140 n.; 
how he was transferred from 
Constantinople to Antioch, 
141, 142; trans, from, on acts 
of disgruntled sophists, 158, 
159; his account of what 
happened after his return to 
teaching after a sickness, 
159, 160; his experiences at 
Constantinople, 160 n.; his 
experience in the matter of 
his salary when he removed 
to Antioch, 175-177; when 
he first received a salary at 
Antioch, 176, 177, 267 n. 
his fees, 183 n., 187, 188 
size of his classes, 185, 186 
trans, from, on poor condi- 
tion of teachers at Antioch, 
191, 192; trans, from, on 
the condition of the four 
rhetors, 192-194; showed 
ignorance of technical de- 
tails in his declamations, 
203; Eunapius's description 
of characteristics of, 205, 
206; trans, from, introduc- 
tion to a theme, 217; age at 
death, 248 n.; trans, from, 
his first display at Antioch, 
261, 262; buildings in which 
he taught at Antioch, 267- 
269, 276 n.; his school, 270- 
273; head of the School of 
Antioch, 275-278; some- 
times taught the whole day, 
279; his works rich in in- 



formation on many subjects, 
283; birthplace, date of 
birth, and date of death, 
283; his description of An- 
tioch, 285, 286; boyhood of, 
at Antioch, 287-292; on 
Athens, 291 n., 337-339; de- 
parts for Athens, 292-295; 
his age as a student, 292; ar- 
rival at Athens, 303, 304; 
undergoes the initiatory 
rites, 305; his opinion of 
his teachers, 310; devotes 
himself to the study of 
the ancients, 311; Euna- 
pius's description of his 
method of study, 311, 312; 
takes no part in the student 
battles, 314, 315; trans, 
from, on the indignities he 
suffers from his students, 
320-323; trans, from, his 
reason for not expelling his 
students, 323, 324; his use 
of the strap and the rod, 
324; induces the teachers to 
make a contract to prevent 
apostasis, 326; his students 
toss a pedagogue in a blan- 
ket, 327; his life in Greece as 
a student, 328; makes friends 
at Athens, 329; his 'chum,' 
330; his departure from 
Athens, 330-333; returns to 
Athens, 334, 335; returns to 
Constantinople and sets up 
a school there, 335; settles 
at Antioch, 336, 337; ttk 
feeling for Athens in l^P 
years, 337-339; when at 
Nicomedia, drew men from 
all quarters, 341 n. 

Libraries, at Alexandria, 49, 
50, 124; at Antioch, 50. 

Literature, Greek, study of, in 
Alexandrian times, 48; of 
the first century A. D., 68 n. 

Lodge, H. C, quoted, 4 n. 

Lollianus, sophist, 87, 183, 
244. 



362 



INDEX 



Longinus, trans, from, 101; 
" a living library and a walk- 
ing museum," 344 n. 

Lowell, J. R., quoted, 187 n. 

Lucian, sophist, 96; trans, 
from, on Athens, 131, 132; 
his description of a contest 
for appointment to a philo- 
sophical chair, 135, 136; 
trans, from, on representa- 
tion, 228, 229; trans, from, 
on Demonax, 253 n. 

Lycon, 28, 30. 

Macedonian period, the, 41-57. 

Macedonian princes, their at- 
titude toward Greece, 44- 
47. 

Maeniana, the, at Treves, 267 n. 

Malalas, historian, 286 n. 

Marcus of Byzantium, sophist, 
256, 257. 

Marseilles, 70. 

Mathematics, 96, 197. See 
Geometry, Arithmetic. 

Medicine, in the first three 
centuries A. D., 96; in the 
fourth century A. D., 116; 
students in, took preliminary 
course in sophistry, 120 n. 

Megistias, sophist, 257-259. 

neXtrr), meaning, 220 n., 224. 

Memory, the training of, in the 
sophist's course, 214, 215. 

Menander, rhetorician, 220 n., 
263. 

■ '&\\ov, 211 n. 
a vdffraff ts, 326 71. 
06s, 179 n. 
Monroe, Paul, quoted, 12 n. 
Morality, result of the sophis- 
tical training, 349-351. 
Municipal chairs. See Political 

chair, Chairs. 
Municipalities, of Asia, in the 
first and second centuries 
A. D., 77, 78; salaries paid 
by, 87; allowed to grant im- 
munities to teachers, 89, 90; 
sometimes tried to with- 



draw privileges, 169, 170; 
extent to which they paid 
salaries of teachers in the 
fourth century, 172-177. 

Museum, at Alexandria, 49, 
86, 152 n.; at Antioch, 50, 
152 n., 267 n. 

Music, in fifth century Athenian 
education, 10-12; change in 
point of view toward, 23. 

nvdos, 207-210. 

Neo-Platonic philosophy, 125- 
129. 

Neo-Platonic school at Ath- 
ens, 126, 139 n. 

Nero, 80, 81. 

Nerva, 82. 

Nicaea, 50, 146. 

Nicetes, sophist, 77, 163 n. 

Nicknames, 310 n. 

Nicomedia, foundation of, 50; 
seat of sophistry, 115, 116, 
124, 146; Libanius at, 140 n., 
160 n., 267 n., 341 n. 

Nicostratus, 134 n. 

Nigrinus, 131. 

Note-taking, 211 n. 

Novel, the, 7. 

Olympiodorus, a summary 
from, trans, of, 301-303. 

Olympius, sophist, 272, 276 n. 

6fii\la, 220 n. 

o7rXo/idxos, 36. 

Orator, the word, 271 n. 

Orator, the embodiment of the 
ideal of education, 351. 

Oratory, as taught by Isoc- 
rates, 32; course of, from 
the fifth century B. C. to the 
first century A. D., 71-79. 
See Sophistry, Rhetoric. 

rraidevriKhs dpSpos, 142 n., 220 n. 
TraidoTpLprjs, 36. 
Pan-Hellenia, the, 83. 
Parthia, 47. 

Paulus, Lucius iEmilius, 52. 
Pay. See Salaries, Fees. 



INDEX 



363 



Pedagogues, sold their wards 
to the highest bidder, 187 n.; 
induced their wards to trans- 
fer their allegiance, 326 n.; 
tossed in a blanket, 327; 
held in esteem, 327 n. 

Pella, 50. 

Pergamum, 42, 50, 65. 

Peripatetic school, foundation 
of, 28; long maintained it- 
self, 101; after Diocletian, 199. 

Uepl C^ouj, trans, from, 235, 236. 

Personality, 16, 248, 341, 342. 

Pertinax, 98 n. 

Philager, sophist, 226, 324 n. 

Philip V of Macedon, 51-53. 

Philiscus of Eordaea, sophist, 
98, 99, 168, 169. 

Philodemus, 72 n. 

Philosophers, granted immu- 
nities by Vespasian, 81; 
granted honors and salaries 
by Antoninus Pius, 86-91; 
method of appointment to 
chairs of, 93, 134-136; quali- 
fications required of, 136- 
138; number of, at Constan- 
tinople, 144, 149; immuni- 
ties of, 165-167; salaries of, 
171; have recourse to the 
law to collect their debts, 
188, 189; feeling that they 
should be indifferent to pay, 
189-191; at Antioch, 275; 
their gown, 301; sometimes 
called sophists, 301 n. 

Philosophical schools, founda- 
tion of, 26-29, 40; internal 
management of, 30; com- 
pared with Isocrates's school, 
32, 33; at Rhodes, 50; in the 
third century B. C, 52; in 
the first century B. C, 54; 
attitude of Hadrian toward, 
84, 85; endowed by Marcus 
Aurelius, 92-94; in the first 
three centuries A. D., 100- 
102; after Diocletian, 107, 
138, 199. See Academic 
school, etc. 



Philosophy, legislation affect- 
ing, in pre-Christian times, 
62; decrease in importance 
of, in the second and follow- 
ing centuries A. D., 100- 
102, 107; the Neo-Platonic, 
125-129; as taught in the 
first centuries of the Chris- 
tian era, 197-200; in what 
part of the course studied, 
201. 

Philostratus, biographer, 95, 
96; his Life of Apollonius of 
Tyana, 98; trans, from, on a 
family in thriving circum- 
stances, 163; on the memory, 
215; on Polemo's manner, 
231; on Adrian, 236, 309; 
on Scopelian, 247; on the 
age of sophists, 248 n.; 
scenes at displays, 257-261. 

Photius, his trans, of a sum- 
mary from Olympiodorus, 
301-303. 

Physicians, granted immuni- 
ties by Vespasian, 81; 
granted immunities by An- 
toninus Pius, 87-90; early, 
treated as benefactors, 87; 
given salaries by Septimius 
Severus, 99; under Con- 
stantine, 106, 107; granted 
immunities by Commodus, 
165; basis on which they 
were granted immunity, 167. 

Plato, trans, from the Protag- 
oras, 12 n.; the Protagoras 
cited, 15-17; the Theages 
cited, 16; founds the Aca- 
demic school, 27; trans, from, 
on educational laws, 59, 
61. 

Plotinus, 125. 

Plutarch, trans, from, on capt- 
ure of Athens by Sulla, 54; 
Ninth Symposiac, 133. 

Plutarch, Neo-Platonist, 125. 

Poets, 81, 234, 235. 

Polemo, sophist, a speech of, 
preserved, 95; his distinc- 



364 



INDEX 



tion at Smyrna, 163; and 
Herodes, 181, 255; anec- 
dotes of, 215, 219 w., 254; 
sprang from his seat while 
speaking, 231; his voice, 
233; and Dionysius, 256; 
and Marcus, 256, 257. 

Political chair, 87 n., 94 n. 

Polybius, trans, from, on state 
of Greece, 51; trans, from, 
on the Rhodian education, 
65; on the Roman educa- 
tion, 66. 

Polymathia, 344. 

Polysperchon, 45. 

Porphyry, 125. 

Primary instruction at Ath- 
ens, 10-13, 18-23. 

Pri8cus, philosopher, 122, 
248 n. 

Privat-Docenten, 147. 

Private teachers, 146-148. 

Proaeresius, sophist, 107; said 
to have been a Christian, 
111; competes for the chair 
at Athens, 153; his personal 
appearance, 247; his age at 
death, 248 ft. ; and Hephses- 
tion, friendship of, 329, 330. 

wpoaydv, 223 ft., 231 n. 

Proclus, philosopher, 125. 

Proclus, sophist, 132, 182, 
324 n. 

Procopius, 124, 210, 211. 

Professional schools, graduate, 
120 n. 

Professor, those who were en- 
titled to the name, 148; 
words used for, 271 ft., 
277 n., 296 n. 

Professors, honored with title, 
150. See Sophists, etc. 

irp6\a\i&, 223 ft. 

irp6\oyos, 223 ft. 

Pronuntiatio, 211 ft. 

Up01T€fXVTlK6t t 238. 

irpocrrciTTjs, 296. 
Ptolemaion, the, 38. 
Ptolemies, the, 42. 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, 49. 



Ptolemy Soter, 49. 
Punishment of students, 323- 
325. 

Quintilian, appointed to chair 
at Rome, 81; his ideal of 
the orator, 349 ft. 

Reading, 25. 

Recitation buildings, 267 ft. 

'Refutation,' 204, 209, 210. 

Representation, 228-230. 

Rhetoric, Isocrates's school of, 
31-35, 40; schools of, at 
Rhodes, 5Q; legislation af- 
fecting, in pre-Christian 
times, 62;; taught at Athens 
from the time of Isocrates 
down, 74; connection of lo- 
cal councils and, 78 ft., 119; 
chairs of, at Rome, 81 ; chairs 
of, at Athens, 87, 91; the 
study of, cultivated in the 
first two centuries A. D., 
96; and philosophy, the two 
great departments of in- 
struction, 197, 198. See 
Sophistry, Oratory. 

Rhetoricians. See Sophists, 
Rhetors. 

Rhetors, mentioned by Strabo, 
73; granted immunities by 
Vespasian, 81; granted hon- 
ors and salaries by Antoni- 
nus Pius, 86-91; granted 
salaries by Septimius Se* 
verus, 99; the four, in Li- 
banius's school, 192-194, 267 
ri., 270, 271; the word, how 
used, 271 ft. 

Rhodes, iEschines transplants 
the study of oratory to, 35; 
schools of rhetoric and phi- 
losophy at, 50 ; a resort of the 
Romans, 55, 56; public edu- 
cation at, 65. 

Romans, their diplomatic rela- 
tions with Greece, 45, 52, 53; 
resort to Greece, 55, 56, 70; 
their attitude toward mil- 



INDEX 



365 



nicipalities, 77, 78; their ap- 
preciation of eloquence, 236. 
Rome, University of, 81, 85, 
94 n., 267; age of students 
at, 292; regulations with re- 
gard to students at, 313 n. 

Salaries, of teachers, at Teos, 
64; at Delphi, 65; at 
Rhodes, 65; granted by Ves- 
pasian, 81; granted by An- 
toninus Pius, 86-89; granted 
by Marcus Aurelius, 91, 92; 
granted by Septimius Se- 
verus, 99; fell into abeyance 
in second half of the third 
century, 105; restored by 
Constantine, 106; size, 171, 
172; by whom paid in the 
fourth century, 172-177; 
paid in kind, 178, 179; 
words for, 178 n.; often dif- 
ficult to collect, 191, 192. 

Scholarch, 27, 30. 

School of Antioch, 270-278. 

School buildings, 266-269. 

Schools, philosophical. See 
Philosophical schools, Aca- 
demic school, etc. 

Scopelian, sophist, and Hero- 
des Atticus, 180; his fees, 
182; his manner when speak- 
ing, 231, 247. 

Secondary instruction, 18, 19, 
23-25. 

Secundus, sophist, 243, 244. 

Seleucids, the, 42. 

Seleucus, 50. 

Septimius Severus, 98. 

Severi, the, 97-99. 

Short-hand-writing, 121, 191. 

Socrates, his influence on edu- 
cation, 15, 18. 

Soli, 50. 

Sophist, the name, 75. 

Sophistical chair, the, 94 n., 
142 n., 153. 

Sophistry, a protest against 
barbarism, 4 n., 346; the 
word, 5; its rise and spread, 



and its influence, 5; its es- 
sence, 6; its influence on 
Greek letters, 6-9; Isocra- 
tes's statement of what it 
does for a man, 33 n. ; train- 
ing in, a preparation for 
life, 73, 75, 78 n., 345-352; 
rise of, in the first and 
second centuries A. D., 70- 
79; chairs of, established in 
the second century A. D., 
86-94; the fourth century, 
second flourishing period of, 
107; decline of, 115-122; in 
the fifth century, 124; and 
philosophy, the two great 
departments of instruction, 
197, 198; the overrating of, 
200, 201; how in general the 
teaching of it differed from 
the teaching of 'grammar,' 
202; what it was and how it 
was taught, 202-217; the 
training in the schools of, 
modern judgments of it, 344, 
347; what it did and what it 
did not profess to do, 345- 
347; the means by which it 
sought to accomplish its 
purpose, 347-352. 
Sophists, of the fifth and fourth 
centuries B.C., 13-18, 31; 
connection of the earlier and 
the later, 71-79; of the first 
century B. C, as pictured by 
Philodemus, 72 n.; their 
number, 142-146; jealousy 
among, 152-161; their posi- 
tion in society, 162-164; 
their immunity from bur- 
dens, 164-170; their fees, 
179-184,187,188; their pro- 
fession profitable, 184; their 
fees as affected by Diocle- 
tian's scale of prices, 184, 
185; size of their classes, 
185-187; sometimes re- 
sorted to the law to recover 
their debts, 188, 189; de- 
terioration of their condi- 



366 



INDEX 



tion toward the close of the 
fourth century, 191; some- 
times difficult for them to 
collect their salaries, 191, 
192; their teaching, 195- 
217; the displays of, 218- 
262; their haughtiness and 
vanity, 232, 254; the ad- 
vanced age to which many 
of them lived, 248 n.; pro- 
fessional honesty of, 255- 
257; their contests, 256, 
257; Court orators, 262; 
varieties of their epideictic 
speeches, 263, 264; began 
course with introductory 
address, and ended it with 
farewell speech, 265, 266; 
where they held their classes, 
266-269; 'chorus' of, 270, 
274; their gown, 301-303; 
stood as fathers to their 
students, 307, 308, 341. 
Sophocles, son of Amphiclei- 
des, 62. 

<Tii)(f>pOVl<TTal, 37. 

Soterus, 134 n. 

Sparta, constitution of, 63. 

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 22 n. 

Speusippus, 27, 29. 

Spoken word, the, 5, 25, 343. 

ffirovd-f}, 220 n. 

Spreads, 305, 319. 

<tt&<tis, 226 n. 

State, education and the, 58- 
67. 

Stoic school, foundation of, 28, 

Strabo, on Marseilles and Tar- 
sus, 70; rhetors mentioned 
by, 73. 

ffrpaTTjyol, 37. 

CTparrjybi iirl tA flirXa, $ic\ tup 
6ir\wv, 66, 76 n. 

Straton, 28. 

Students, gave displays, 211 n.; 
took notes of lectures, 211 n.; 
questioned teachers, 211 n.; 
age of, 292, 293; their corps, 
296-304; words for, 296 w.; 
the impressing and hazing of, 



296-307; their gown, 301- 
303; stood as sons to their 
teachers, 307, 308, 341; bat- 
tles of their rival corps, 312- 

318, 320; their amusements, 

319, 320; their conduct at 
the lectures, 320-324; pun- 
ishment of, 324, 325; defec- 
tion of, 325, 326; toss a 
pedagogue in a blanket, 
327; friendships among, 
329, 330; expenses of, 331; 
regrets of, at leaving Athens, 
332, 333. 

Style, the study of, for its own 
sake, 6; the study of, in the 
sophist's school, 208, 209; 
literary, of the sophists, 245, 
246. 

Suasorice, 224 n. 

Successors, the, of Alexander, 
42, 43, 45-47; of the philo- 
sophical schools, 102. 

Sulla, 53, 54. 

<rv/A(Sov\evTtK&, 220 n., 224 n. 

ffvpovala, 220 n. 

Synesius, trans, from, on 
Athens, 122-124; on envy 
among teachers, 152 n. 

Syrianus, 125. 

Tarsus, 50, 70, 95, 116 n. 

Tatian, on salaries of philoso- 
phers, 87 n. 

Taurus, philosopher, 133, 
211 n. 

Taxes, immunity from, 86, 
164-167. 

r^xvai, text-books, 72 n. 

T ^X*"?> 59 n. 

Teles, trans, from, 19 n. 

Teos, 61, 64. 

Theagenes, 181 n. 

Theatres for displays, 267 n. 

Themes, set in the schools, 
205, 215-217; the pro- 
pounding of, 225, 226; the 
power of the sophists to 
grasp the essential point of, 
226, 227; samples of those 



INDEX 



367 



propounded at the displays, 
227, 228; representation in, 
228-230; manner of the 
sophists in dealing with, 230- 
238, 246-250; samples of 
introductions to and pas- 
sages from, 238-246; de- 
scriptions of sophists dis- 
cussing, 255-262. 

Themistius, philosopher, 107; 
trans, from, on envy among 
teachers, 152 n.; helped 
needy students, 163 n.; hon- 
ors of, at Constantinople, 
164 n.; the salary to which 
he was entitled, 178; did not 
take fees or salary, 179 n., 
183; accused of buying stu- 
dents, 187; his philosophy, 
199; age at death, 248 n.; 
head of the School of Con- 
stantinople, 278 ; on the ques- 
tion, why students look to 
the city rather than to the 
teachers, 291 n. 

Theodosian Code, trans, from, 
148-150, 313 n. 

Theodosius the Great, 122. 

Theodosius II, 124. 

Theodotus, sophist, 91. 

Theon, philosopher, 125. 

Theon, rhetorician, trans, from, 
on the study of rhetoric, 
200, 201 ; his account of the 
sophistical course, 203 n.; 
trans, from, on individual 



aptitudes, 205; trans, from, 

on methods of teaching, 

206. 
Theophrastus, 28. 
Thessalonica, 116 n. 
denied, 72 n., 223 n. 
dpbvoi. See Chairs. 
Tigranes, 47. 
Titles, given to teachers, 150, 

164 n. 

T0|6t?J5, 36. 

Trajan, 82, 83. 
Treves, 178, 267 n. 
Troezen, 65 n. 
Tuition, cost of, 183, 331. 
Tutors, private, 146-148. 
Tyre, 116 n., 124. 

Ulpian, 189. 

Under-teachers, 272. 

University, wherein the an- 
cient differed from the mod- 
ern, 150-152; the name for, 
152 n. See Athens, etc. 

InroKpuTis, 229, 230. 

Vacatio, 164 n. 
Vacations, 279-281. 
VespasiaD, 81. 

Voice of the sophists, 233- 
237. 

Xenocrates, 27. 

Zenobius, 192, 267 n., 288 n. 
Zenodotus, 49. 










































y 



